The pen made the most beautiful, jet-black marks, and the paper drank it up like a thirsty man in the desert. I recopied my essay the next day, sitting with Mama in the parlour while she darned socks. Mr Johnstone had given her a tin of cosmetics from Paris, that he'd ordered in special. I'd heard Mama say that only dancehall girls wore makeup, but she blushed when he gave it to her. I gave her a carving I'd done, of the robutler we'd had in 75. I'd whittled it out of a block of pine, and sanded it and oiled it until it was as smooth as silk.
Oly Sweynsdatter came by after supper and asked if I wanted to go out and play with the fellows. To my surprise, I found I did. We had a grand afternoon pelting each other with snow-balls, a game that turned into a full-scale war, as all the older boys back from high-school came out and joined in, and then, later, all the men, even the Sheriff and Mr Adelson. I never laughed so much in all my life, even when I got one right in the ear.
Mr Adelson led a charge of adults against the fort that most of the Academy boys were hiding behind, but I saw him planning it and started laying in ammunition long before they made their go, and we sent them back with their tails between their legs. I hit him smack in the behind with one ball as he dove for cover.
Oly's mother gave us both good, Svenska hot cocoa afterwards, with fresh whipped cream, and Oly and I exchanged gifts. He gave me a tin soldier, a Confederate who was caught in the act of falling over backwards, clutching his chest. I gave him my best marble. We followed his mother around their house, recounting the adventures in the snow until she told me it was time for me to go home.
#
School started again, and I went in early the first day to turn in my paper. Mr Adelson took it without comment and scanned the first few paragraphs. "Thank you, James, I think this will do nicely. I'll have it graded for you in the afternoon."
I met Oly out in the orchard, where he was chopping kindling for the school's stove, a job we all took turns at. "I hear you might be getting a new Pa for Christmas," he said. He gave me a smile that meant something, but I couldn't guess what.
"What is that supposed to mean?" I asked.
"My Mama says your Mama had old man Johnstone over for Christmas dinner. And the widow Ott told my Mama that she'd connected one or two calls between your house and the store every day in the last month. My Mama says that Johnstone is courting your Mama."
"Mrs Ott isn't supposed to talk about the calls she connects," I said, as my mind reeled. "It's like a telegraph operator: it's a confidential trust." Mr Adelson had told me that, once when he was telling me stories about his life before he went to sea.
"So, is it true?"
"No!" I said, surprising myself with my vehemence. "My Mama just didn't want him to be alone at Christmas."
Oly swung the axe a few more times. "Well, sure. But what about all the telephone calls?"
"That's business. The store is still partly ours. Mama's just looking after our interests."
"If you say so," he said.
I shoved him hard. I drew a line in the snow with my toe. "Idosay so. Step across the line if you say otherwise!"
Oly got to his feet and looked at me. "I don't want to fight with you, James. I was just tellin' you what my Mama said."
"Well, your Mama ought to mind her own business," I said, baiting him.
That did it. He stepped over and popped me one, right in the nose. Oly and I had been chums since we could walk, and we'd had a few fights in our days but this time it was different. I was soangryat him, at my Mama, at my Pa, at New Jerusalem, and we just kept on swinging at each other until Mr Adelson came out to ring the bell and separated us. My nose was sore and I was limping, and I'd torn Oly's jacket and bent his fingers back, so he cradled his hand in the crook of his arm.
"Boys!" Mr Adelson said. "What the hell do you think you're doing? You're supposed to be friends."
His language shocked me, but I was still plenty angry. "He's no friend of mine!"I said.
"That's fine with me," Oly said and glared at me.
The other kids were milling around, and Mr Adelson gave us both a look that could melt steel, then rang the bell.
#
I could hardly concentrate in class that day. My Mama getting married? A new Pa? It couldn't be true. But in my mind, I kept seeing my Mama and that Johnstone kissing under the mistletoe, and him sitting in my Pa's chair, drinking his whiskey.
Oly's desk was next to mine, and he kept shooting me dirty looks. Finally, I leaned over and whispered, "Cut it out, you idiot."
Oly said, "You're the idiot. I think you got your brains scrambled in France,James."
"I'll scramble your brains!"
"Gentlemen," said Mr Adelson. "Do you have something you'd like to share with the class?"
"No sir," we said together, and exchanged glares.
"James, perhaps you'd like to come up to the front and finish the lesson?"
"Sir?" I said, looking at the blackboard. He'd been going through quadratics, an elaborate first-principles proof.
"I believe you know this already, don't you? Come up to the front and finish the lesson."
Slowly, I got up from my desk, leaving my slate on my desk, and made my way up to the front. Some of the kids giggled. I picked up a piece of chalk from the chalk-well, and started to write on the board.
Mr Adelson walked back to my seat and sat down. I stopped and looked over my shoulder, and he gave me a little scooting gesture that meant go on. I did, and by the end of the hour, I found that I was enjoying myself. I stopped frequently for questions, and erased the board over and over again, filling it with steady columns of numbers and equations. I stopped noticing Mr Adelson in my seat, and when he stood and thanked me and told us we could eat our lunches, it seemed like no time at all had passed.
Mr Adelson looked up from my essay. "James, I'd like to have a chat with you.Stay behind, please."
"Sit," he said, offering me the chair at his desk. He sat on one of the front-row desks, and stared at me for a long moment.
"What was that mess this morning all about, James?" he asked.
"Oly and I had an argument," I said, sullenly.
"I could see that. What was it about, if you don't mind my asking?"
"He said something about my Mama," I said.
"I see," he said. "Well, having met your mother, I feel confident in saying that she's more than capable of defending herself. Am I right?"
"Yes, sir," I said.
"Then we won't see a repeat?"
"No, sir," I said. I didn't plan on talking to Oly ever again.
"Then we'll say no more about it. Now, about this morning's lesson: you did very well."
"It was a dirty trick," I said.
He grinned like a pirate. "I suppose it was. I wouldn't have played it on you if I didn't have every confidence in your abilities, though." He leaned across and picked up my essay from his desk. "It was this that convinced me, really. This is as good as anything I've seen in scholarly journals. I've half a mind to send it to theIdler."
"I'm just a kid!"
"You're an extraordinary boy. I'm tempted to let you teach all the classes, and take up whittling."
He said it so deadpan, I couldn't tell if he was kidding me. "Oh, you can't do that! I'm not nearly ready to take over."
He laughed. "You're readier than you think, but I expect the town council would stop my salary unless I didsomeof the work around here. Still, I think that's the most active I've seen you since you came to my class, and I'm running out of ideas to keep you busy. Maybe I'll keep you teaching maths. I'll give you my lesson plan to take home before school's out."
"Yes, sir."
#
Mr Adelson gave me a stack of papers tied up with twine after he dismissed the class for the day. I went home and did my chores, then unwrapped the parcel in the parlour. The lesson plans were there, laid out, day by day, and in the centre of them was a smaller parcel, wrapped in coloured paper. "Merry Christmas," was written across it, in his hand.
I opened it, and found a slim book. "War of the Worlds," by Verne. For some reason, it rang a bell. I thought that maybe it had been on our bookcase in 75, but somehow, it hadn't made it back home with us. I opened it, and read the inscription he'd written: "From one traveller to another, Merry Christmas."
I forced myself to read the lesson plans for the next month before I allowed myself to start the Verne, and once I started, I found I couldn't stop. Mama had to drag me away for dinner.
#
My trip back to 1975 wasn't planned, but it wasn't an accident, either. We'd gotten a new load of hay in for our team, and Mama added stacking it in the horsebarn to my chores. I'd been consciously avoiding the horsebarn since Pa had disappeared. Every time I looked at it, I felt a little hexed, a little frightened.
But Mama had a philosophy: a boy should face up to his fears. She'd been terrified of spiders when she was a girl, and she told me that she had made a point of picking up every spider she saw and letting it crawl around on her face. After a year of that, she said, she never met a spider that frightened her.
Mama had been sending me to the store more and more, too, and having Mr Johnstone over for dinner every Friday night. She knew I didn't like him one little bit, and she said that I would just have to learn to live with what I didn't like, and if that was the only thing I learned from her, it would be enough.
I preferred the horsebarn.
I worked close to the door the first day, which is no way to do it, of course: if you blocked the door, it just made it harder to get at the back when the time came. The way to do it is to first clear out whatever hay is left over, move it out to the pasture, and then fill in from the back forward.
Mama told me so, that first night, when she came out to inspect my work. "You sure must love working out here," she said. "If you do it that way, you'll be out here stacking for twice as long. Well, you have your fun, but I still expect you to be getting your homework and regular chores done. Come in and clean up for supper now."
I jammed the pitchfork into a bale, and washed for supper.
The next afternoon, I resolved to do it right. I moved the bales I'd stacked upby the door to a corner, and then started cleaning out the back. Before long,I'd uncovered the door into 1975. "James," Mama called, from the house."Dinner!"
I took a long look at the door. The wood on the edges had aged to the silvery-brown of the rest of the barn-boards, and it looked like it had been there forever. I could hardly remember a time when it wasn't there.
I went in for supper.
The next morning, I picked up my lunch and my schoolbooks, kissed Mama good-bye, and walked out. I stood on our porch for a long time, staring at the horsebarn. I remembered the brave explorers in Verne's books. I looked over my shoulder, at the closed door of our house, then walked slowly to the horsebarn. I swung the door open, then walked to the back. The triple-bolts had rusted somewhat and took real shoving to slide back. One of them was stubborn, so I picked up the rake and pried it back with the handle, thinking of how ingenious that was.
I gave the door my shoulder and shoved, and it swung back, complaining on its hinges. On the other side was the still-familiar dark of our 1975 apartment. I stepped into it, and closed the door behind me.
"Lights," I said, and they came on.
The old place was just like the day we left it. It wasn't even dusty, and as I heard the familiar trundle of the robutler, I knew why. My Pa's easy chair sat in the parlour, with a print-out of the day'sSalt Lake City Buglerfolded on the side-table. I walked to one wall and laid my palm against it, the familiar cool glassy stuff it was made of. "Window," I said, and wiped a line across the wall. Wherever my hand wiped went transparent. It was a sunny day in 1975 — 1980, by then, but it would be 75 in my mind forever. Under the dome, Greater Salt Lake was warm and tranquil. I saw boys my age scooting around in jet-packs, dodging hover-traffic.
Pa liked to open a big, square window when he came home, and sit in his easy chair and smoke a stinky cigar and read the paper and cluck over it — "Well, well, well," he'd say, and "Howaboutthat?" Sometimes, he'd have a tumbler of whiskey. He'd given me some, once, and the stuff had burned like turpentine and I swore I wouldn't try it again for a long, long time.
I sat in Pa's easy chair and snapped up the newspaper, the way he used to. "Panorama," I said, and Pa's square window opened before me. "Whiskey," I said, and "Cigar," because I was never one for half-measures. The robutler trundled over to me with a tumbler and a White Owl in its hover-field. I plucked them out. Cautiously, I put the cigar between my lips. The robutler extruded a long, snaky arm with a flame, and lit it. I took a deep puff, and coughed convulsively. Unthinking, I took a gulp of whiskey. I felt like my lungs had turned inside-out.
I finished both the whiskey and the cigar before I got up, taking cautious puffs and tiny sips, forcing myself.
My head swam, and nausea nearly drowned me. I staggered into the WC, and hung my head in the oubliette for an eternity, but nothing was coming up. I moved into my old bedroom and splayed out on my bed, watching the ceiling spin. "Lights," I managed to croak, and the room went dark.
#
When I woke in the morning, the walls were at half-opacity, the normal 0700 schedule, and I dragged myself out of bed.
The robutler had extruded the table and set out my breakfast, ham and eggs and a big bulb of milk. One look at it sent me over the edge, and I left a trail of sick all the way to the WC.
When I was done, I was as wrung-out as a washcloth. My head pounded. The robutler was quietly cleaning up my mess. I started to order it to clear away breakfast, but discovered that I was miraculously hungry. I ate everything on the table and seconds, besides, and had the robutler juice my temples and clear away my headache. I dialed the walls to full transparency, and watched the traffic go by.
The robutler maneuvered itself into my field of vision and flashed a clock on its chest-plate: 0800 0800 0800. It was my old school-alarm. It snapped me back to reality. My Mama was going to whip me raw! She must've been worried sick.
I stood up and ran for the door. It was closed. I punched my code into its panel, and waited. Nothing happened. I calmed myself and punched it again. Still nothing. After trying it a hundred times, I convinced myself that it had been changed.
I summoned the robutler and asked it for the code. Its chest-panel lit up: BADPROGRAM.
That's when I started to really worry. I was near to tears when I remembered the emergency override. I punched it in.
Nothing happened.
I think I started crying around then. I was stuck in 1975!
#
I'm not a stupid little kid. I didn't spend much time pewling. Instead, I went to the phone and dialed the police. The screen stayed blank. Feeling like I was in a dream, I went to the teleporter and dialed for my old school and stepped in. I failed to teleport.
Reality sank in.
All outside services to the apartment had been shut off when we moved out. The only things that still worked were the ones that ran off our reactor, a squat armoured box on the apartment's underbelly. The door in New Jerusalem worked, but on the 1975 side, it needed to communicate with the central office to approve any passage.
I thought about sitting tight and waiting. Mama would be sick with worry, and would check the barn eventually and see the shot bolts. She'd speak to Mr Johnstone, who would send a telegram to Paris, and they would relay the message to 1975, andvoila, I'd be rescued. I'd get the whipping of my life, and do extra chores until I was seventy, but it was better than starving to death after the apartment's pantry ran out. I felt hungry just thinking about it.
Still, there was a better way. The null-gee doughnut that our apartment was spoked into had a supply of escape-jumpers, single-use jet-packs with a simple transponder that screamed for help on all the emergency channels. I could ride one of these down into Greater Salt Lake, wait for the police. The more I thought about this plan, the better it sounded. Better, anyway, than sitting around like a fairytale princess, waiting for rescue. In my mind, I was the rescuing type, not the kind that needed rescuing.
Besides, there wasn't much better than riding around in one of those jet-packs.
I cycled the emergency lock into the doughnut, unracked a pack and a jumpsuit that looked like it would fit me, and suited up. The packed whined as it powered up and ran through its diagnostics. I checked the idiot-lights to make sure they were all green, feeling like a real man of action, then I stepped into the exterior lock and jumped, arms and legs streamlined, toes pointed.
The jet-pack coughed to life and kicked me gently, then started lowering me to the ground. The emergency beacon's idiot-light came on, and I heaved a sigh of relief and got comfortable.
The flight was peaceful and dreamlike, a slow descent over the gleaming metal city. I was so engrossed with the view that I didn't see the packjackers until they were already on me. They hit me high and low, two kids about my age with tricked-out custom jet-packs with their traffic beacons broken off. One snagged my knees and hugged them to his chest, while the other took me at the armpits. A voice shouted in my ear: "I'm cutting your pack loose. This is a very, very sharp knife, and when I'm done, I'll be the only thing holding you up.Don't squirm."
I didn't even have the chance to squirm. By the time the speech was finished, I was separated from my pack, and I spun over upside-down, and watched it continue its descent, straps dangling in the wind. My hair hung down, and blood filled my head, reawakening my headache. Reflexively, I twisted to get a look at my kidnappers, but stopped immediately as I felt their grips loosen. I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed.
The three of us dove fast and hard, and I tasted that second helping of breakfast again before we leveled off. I risked a peek, then squeezed my eyes shut again. We were speeding through the lower levels of Greater Salt Lake, the unmanned freight corridors, impossibly claustrophobic, and at our speed, dangerous.
We cornered tightly so many times that I lost count, and then we slowed to a stop. They dumped me to the ground, steel traction-plate. The wind was knocked out of me, and I was barely conscious of the hands that untabbed my jumpsuit, then began methodically turning out the pockets of my clothes.
"What the hell are you wearing, kid?" one of them asked. It was the same one who'd warned me about squirming. Hearing his voice a second time, I realised that he was younger than I was, maybe ten or eleven. Even then, it didn't occur to me to fight back — he had a knife sharp enough to cut through the safety strapping on my pack.
"Clothes. I'm from 1898 — my Pa's an ambassador. I don't have any money." I struggled into a sitting position, and was knocked onto my back again.
"Stay down and you won't get hurt," the same voice said. It was young enough that I couldn't tell if it was a boy or a girl. Small hands pressed into my eyes. "No peeking, now."
Another set of hands systematically rifled my coat and pants, then cut them loose and gave the same treatment to my underpants and shirt. I blushed as they were cut loose, too.
"You really don't have any money!" the voice said.
"I said so, didn't I?"
The voice said a dirty word that would've gotten it beaten black-and-blue back home, and then the hands were gone. I looked up just in time to see two small figures jetting away upwards.
I was naked, sitting on a catwalk above a freight corridor, three-quarters of a century and God-knew-how-many miles from home. I didn't cry. I was too worried to cry. I kicked my ruined clothes down into the freight corridor and pulled on the jumpsuit.
Some hero I was!
#
It was hard work, climbing staircase after staircase, up to the shopping levels. By the time I reached a level where I could see the sky, I was dripping with sweat and my headache had returned.
Foot traffic was light, but what there was pretty frightening. I'd gone walking in 75 before of course, but Greater Salt Lake was a big place, and there were parts of it that an Ambassador's son would never get to see.
This was one of them. The shopfronts were all iris-open airlocks, and had been painted around to look like surprised mouths, or eyes, or, in one fascinating case, a woman's private parts. Mostly, they were betting shops, or bars, or low-rent bounceaterias. Even in 1975, the Saints had some influence in Salt Lake, and the bars and brothels were pretty shameful places, where no respectable person would be caught.
The other pedestrians on the street were mostly off-worlders, either spacers in uniform or extees. In some cases, it was hard to tell which was which.
I kind of slunk along, sticking to the walls, hands in my pockets. I kept my eyes down, except when I was looking around for a public phone. After several blocks, I realised that no one was paying any attention to me, and I took my hands out of my pockets. The sun filtered down over me, warm through the big dome, and I realised that even though I'd gotten myself stuck in 75, been 'jacked, and left in the worst neighbourhood in the whole State, I'd landed on my feet. The thought made me smile. Another kid, say Oly, wouldn't have coped nearly as well.
I still hadn't spied a public phone. I figured that the taprooms would have a phone, otherwise, how could a drunk call his wife and tell her he was going to be late coming home? I picked a bar, whose airlock was painted to look like a brick tunnel, and walked in.
The airlock irised shut behind me and I blinked in the gloom. My nose was assaulted with sickly sweet incense, and stale liquor, and cigar smoke.
The place was tiny, and crowded with dented metal tables and chairs that were bolted to the floorplates. A woman stood behind the bar, looking hard and brassy and cheap, watching a soap opera on her vid. A spacer sat in one corner, staring at his bulb of beer.
The bartender looked up. "Get lost, kid," she said. "No minors allowed."
"Sorry, ma'am," I said. "I just wanted to use your telephone. I was packjacked, and I need to call the police."
The bartender turned back to her soap opera. "Go peddle it somewhere else, sonny. The phone's for customers only."
"Please," I said. "My father's an ambassador, from 1898? I don't have any money, and I'm stuck here. I won't be a minute."
The spacer looked up from his drink. "Get lost, the lady said," he slurred at me.
"I'll buy something," I said.
"You just said you don't have any money," the bartender said.
"I'll pay for it when the police get here. The Embassy will cover it."
"No credit," she said.
"You're not going to let me use your phone?" I said.
"That's right," she said, still staring at her vid.
"I'm a stranger, an ambassador's son, who's been robbed. A kid. Stuck here, broke and alone, and you won't let me use your phone to call the police?"
"That's about the size of things," she said.
"Well, I guess my Pa was right. The whole world went to hell after 1914. No manners, no human decency."
"You're breaking my heart," she said.
"Fine. Be that way. Send me back out on the street, deny me a favour that won't cost you one red cent, just because I'm a stranger."
"Shutup, kid, for chrissakes," the spacer said. "I'll stand him to a Coke, if that's what it takes. Just let him use the phone and get out of here. He's giving me a headache."
"Thank you, sir," I said, politely.
The bartender switched her vid over to phone mode, poured me a Coke, and handed me the vid.
#
The policeman who showed up a few minutes later stuck me in the back of his cruiser, listened to my story, scanned my retinas, confirmed my identity, and retracted the armour between the back and front seats.
"I'll take you to the station house," he said. "We'll contact your Embassy, let them handle it from there."
"What about the kids who 'jacked me?" I asked.
The cop turned the jetcar's conn over to wire-fly mode and turned around. "You got any description?"
"Well, they had really nice packs on, with the traffic beacons snapped off. One was red, and I think the other was green. And they were young. Ten or eleven."
The cop punched at his screen. "Kid," he said, "I got over three million minors eight to eleven, flying packs less than a year old. The most popular colour is red. Second choice, green. Where would you like me to start? Alphabetically?"
"Sorry, sir, I didn't realise."
"Sure," he said. "Whatever."
"I guess I'm not thinking very clearly. It's been a long day."
The cop looked over to me and smiled. "I guess it has, at that. Don't worry, kid, we'll get you home all right."
#
They gave me a fresh jumpsuit, sat me on a bench, called the embassy, and forgot about me. A long, boring time later, a fat man with walrus moustaches and ruddy skin showed up.
"On your feet, lad," he said. "I'm Pondicherry, your father's successor. You've made quite a mess of things, haven't you?" He had a clipped, British accent, with a hint of something else. I remembered Mr Johnstone saying he'd been in India. He wore a standard unisex jumpsuit, with his ambassadorial sash overtop of it. He looked ridiculous.
"Sorry to have disturbed you, sir," I said.
"I'm sure you are," he said. "Come along, we'll see about fixing this mess."
He used the station's teleporter to bring me to his apartment. It was as ridiculous as his uniform, and in the same way. He'd taken the basic elegant simplicity of a standard 1975 unit and draped all kinds of silly trophies and models overtop of it: lions' heads and sabers and model ships and framed medals and savage masks and dolls.
"You may look, but not touch, do you understand me?" he said, as we stepped out of the teleporter.
"Yes, sir," I said. If anyone else had said it, I would have been offended, but coming from this puffed-up pigeon, it didn't sting much.
He went to a vid and punched impatiently at the screen while I prowled the apartment. The bookcase was full of old friends, books by the Frenchman, of course, and more, with strange names like Wells and Burroughs and Shelley. I looked over a long, stone-headed spear, and the curve of an elephant's tusk, and a collection of campaign ribbons and medals under glass. I returned to the bookcase: something had been bothering me. There, there it was: "War of the Worlds," the book that Mr Adelson had given me for Christmas. But there was something wrong with the spine of this one: instead ofJules Verne, the author name wasH.G. Wells. I snuck a look over my shoulder; Pondicherry was still stabbing at the screen. I snuck the book off the shelf and turned to the title page: "War of the Worlds, by Herbert George Wells." I turned to the first chapter:
The Eve of the War
No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.
It was just as I remembered it, every word, just as it was in the Verne. I couldn't begin to explain it.
A robutler swung out of its niche with a sheaf of papers. I startled at the noise, then reflexively stuck the book in my jumpsuit. The roboutler delivered them to Pondicherry, who stuffed them in a briefcase.
"The embassy will be able to return you home by courier route in three hours. Unfortunately, I don't have the luxury of waiting around here until then. I have an important meeting to attend — you'll have to come along."
"Yes, sir," I said, trying to sound eager and helpful.
"Don't say anything, don't touch anything. This is very sensitive."
"No, sir, I won't. Thank you, sir."
#
The meeting was in a private room in a fancy restaurant, one that I'd been to before for an embassy Christmas party. Mama had drunk two glasses of sherry, and had flushed right to the neck of her dress. We'd had roast beef, and a goose wrapped inside a huge squash, the size of a barrel, like they grew on the Moon.
Pondicherry whisked through the lobby, and the main dining room, and then up a narrow set of stairs, without checking to see if I was following. I dawdled a little, remembering Pa laughing and raising his glass in toast after toast.
I caught up with Pondicherry just as he was ordering, speaking brusquely into the table. Another man sat opposite him. Pondicherry looked up at me and said, "Have you dined, boy?"
"No, sir."
He ordered me a plate of calf livers in cream sauce, which is about the worst thing you can feed a boy, if you ask me, which he didn't. "Sit down," he said. "Mr Nussbaum, Master James Nicholson. I am temporarily inloco parentis, until he can be sent home."
Nussbaum smiled and extended his hand. He was wearing a grey suit, with a strange cut, and a black tie. His fingers dripped with heavy gold rings, and his hair, while short, still managed to look fancy and a little sissy-fied. "Good to meetcha, son. You Lester's boy?"
"Yes, sir, he was my Pa."
"Good man. A damned shame. What are you doing here? Playing hooky?"
"I guess I just got lost. I'm going home, soon as they can get me there."
"Is that so? Well, I'll be sad to see you go. You look like a smart kid. You like chocolate cake, I bet."
"Sometimes," I said.
"Like when?"
"When my mama makes it, with a glass of milk, after school," I said.
He laughed, a strangled har-har-har. "You guys kill me. Your mama, huh? Well, they make some fine chocolate cake here, though it may not be as good as the stuff from home." He thumbed the table. "Sweetie, send up the biggest piece of chocolate cake you got down there, and a glass a milk, willya?"
The table acknowledged his request with a soft green light.
"Thank you, sir," I said.
"That's quite enough, I think," Pondicherry said. "I didn't come here to watch you rot young James's teeth. Can we get to business?"
Pondicherry started talking, in rapid, clipped sentences, punctuated by vicious bites of his food. I tried to follow what it was about — trading buffalo steaks for rare metals, I got that much, but not much more. The calves' livers were worse than I imagined, and I hid as much of them as I could under the potatoes, then pushed the plate away and dug into the cake.
I sneaked a look up and saw that Nussbaum was grinning slyly at me. He hadn't said much, just ate calmly and waited for Pondicherry to run out of steam. He caught my eye and slipped a wink at me. I looked over at Pondicherry, who was noisily cudding a piece of steak, oblivious, and winked back at Nussbaum.
Pondicherry daubbed at his mouth with his napkin. "Excuse me," he said, "I'll be right back." He stood and walked towards the WC.
Nussbaum suddenly jingled. Distractledly, he patted his pockets until he located a tiny phone. He flipped it open and grunted "Nussbaum," into it.
"Jules!" he said a moment later. "How're things?"
He scowled as he listened to the answer. "Now, you and I know that there's a difference betweensmartandgreedy. I think it's a bad idea."
He listened some more and drummed his fingers on the table.
"Because it's notcredible, dammit! Even the title is anachronistic: no one in 1902 is going to understand whatNeuromancermeans. Think about it, wouldya? Why don't you do some of Twain's stuff? Those books've gotlegs."
My jaw dropped. Nussbaum was talking to the Frenchman — and he was helping him tocheat! To steal from Mark Twain! I was suddenly conscious of "War of the Worlds," down the front of my jumpsuit. I thought back to Mr Adelson's assignment, and it all made sudden sense. Verne was aplagiarist.
Nussbaum hung up just as Pondicherry re-seated himself. He took a sip of his drink, then held up a hand. Pondicherry eyed him coldly.
"Look," Nussbaum said. "We've gone over this a few times, OK? I know where you stand. You know where I stand. We're not standing in the same place. Much as I enjoy your company, I don't really wanna spend the whole day listening to you repeating yourself. All right?"
"Really, I don't think —" Pondicherry started, but Nussbaum held up his hand again.
"That's all right, I'm a rude son-of-a-bitch, and I know it. Let's just take it as read that you and me spent the whole afternoon letting the other fella know how sincere our positions are. Then we can move onto cocktails, and compromise, and maybe have some of the day left over." Pondicherry started to talk again, but Nussbaum plowed over him. "I'll go to six troy ounces per steer. You won't get a better offer. 98% pure ores. Better than anything you'd ever refine back home. It's as far as I go."
"Sir, is that an ultimatum?" Pondicherry asked, his eyes narrowing.
"Call it whatever you please, buster. It's my final, iron-clad offer. You don't like it, I can talk to the Chinaman. He seemed pretty eager to get some good metal home to the Emperor."
"You wouldn't — he's too far back, it would violate the protocols."
"That's what you say. It may be what the trade court decides. I'll take my chances."
"Six and a half ounces," Pondicherry said, in a spoiled-brat voice.
"You don't hear so good, do you? Six ounces is the offer on the table; take it or leave it." Nussbaum pushed some papers across the table.
Pondicherry stared at them for a long moment. "I will sign them, sir, but it is with the expectation of continued trade opportunities. This is a good-will gesture, do you understand?"
Nussbaum snorted and reached for his papers. "This is about steaks and metals.This isn't about the future, it's about today, now. That's what's on the table.You can sign it, or you can walk away."
Pondicherry blew air out his nose like a crazy horse, and signed. "If you'll excuse me, I need to use the WC again." He rose and left the room, purple from the collar up.
"What a maroon," Nussbaum said to the closed door. "This's gotta be a real blast for you, huh?" he said.
I grinned. "It's not so bad. I liked watchin' you hogtie him."
He laughed. "I never would've tried that on your father, kid. He was too sharp. But fatso there, he's terrified the Chinaman will give the Middle Kingdom an edge when it faces down his Royal Navy. All it takes is the slightest hint, and he folds like a cheap suit."
That made me chuckle — a cheap suit!
I gave him my best innocent look. "Who else knows about the Frenchman?" I asked him.
Nussbaum grinned like he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "I realised about halfway through that conversation that being Lester's boy, you've probably read just about every word old Jules 'wrote.'"
"I have," I said. I took out "War of the Worlds." "How does Mr Wells feel about this?" I asked.
"I imagine he's pretty mystified," Nussbaum said. "Would you believe, you're the first one who's caught on?"
I believed it. I knew enough to know that the agencies that policed the protocols had their hands full keeping track of art and gold smugglers. I'd never even thought of smugglingwords. If the trade courts found out. . . Well, hardly a week went by that someone didn't propose shutting down the ambassadorships; they'd talk about how the future kept on leaking pastwards, and if we thought 1975 looked bad, imagine life in 1492 once the future reached it! The ambassadors had made a lot of friends in high places, though: they used their influence to keep things on an even keel.
Nussbaum raised an eyebrow and studied me. "I think your father may've figured it out, but he kept it to himself. He and Jules got along like a house on fire."
I kept the innocent look on my face. "Well, then," I said. "If Pa didn't say anything, you'd think that I wouldn't either, right?"
Nussbaum sighed and gave me a sheepish look. "I'dliketo think so," he said.
I turned the book over in my hands, keeping my gaze locked with his. I was about to tell him that I'd keep it to myself, but at the last minute, some instinct told me to keep my mouth shut.
Nussbaum shrugged as though to say,I give up. "Hey, you're headed home today, right?" he said, carefully.
"Yes, sir."
"I've got a message that you could maybe relay for me, you think?"
"I guess so. . ." I said, doubtfully.
"I'll make it worth your while. It's got to go to a friend of mine in Frisco. There's no hurry — just make sure he gets it in the next ten years or so. Once you deliver it, he'll take care of you — you'll be set for life."
"Gosh," I said, deadpan.
"Are you game?"
"I guess so. Sure." My heart skipped. Set for life!
"The man you want to speak to is Reddekop, he's the organist at the Castro theatre. Tell him: 'Nussbaum says get out by October 29th, 1929.' He'll know what it means. You got that?"
"Reddekop, Castro Theatre. October 29th, 1929."
"Exac-atac-ally." He slid "War of the Worlds" into his briefcase. "You're doin' me a hell of a favour, son."
He shook my hand. Pondicherry came back in then, and glared at me. "The embassy contacted me. They can set you at home six months after you left — there's a courier gateway this afternoon."
"Six months!" I said. "My Mama will go crazy! Can't you get me home any sooner?"
Pondicherry smirked. "Don't complain to me, boy. You dug this hole yourself. The next scheduled courier going anywhere near your departure-point is in five years. We'll send notice to your mother then, to expect you home mid-July."
"Tough break, kiddo," Nussbaum said, and he shook my hand and slipped me another wink.
#
The courier gateway let me out in an alleyway in Salt Lake City. The embassy had given me ten Wells Fargo dollars, and fitted me out with a pair of jeans and a workshirt that were both far too big for me, so that they slopped around me as I made my way to the train station and bought my ticket to New Jerusalem.
It was Wednesday, the normal schedule for the Zephyr Speedball, so I didn't have too long to wait at the station. I bought copies of the Salt Lake CityShout, and the San FranciscoChroniclefrom a passing newsie. TheChroniclewas a week old, but it was filled with all sorts of fascinating big-city gossip. I read it cover-to-cover on the long ride to New Jerusalem.
Mama met me at the train station. I'd been expecting a switching, right then and there, but instead she hugged me fiercely with tears in her eyes. I remembered that it had been over six months for her since I'd gone.
"James, you will be the death of me, I swear," she said, after she'd squeezed every last bit of stuffing out of me.
"I'm sorry, Mama," I said.
"We had to tell everyone you'd gone away to school in France," a familiar male voice said. I looked up and saw Mr Johnstone standing a few yards away, with our team and trap. He was glaring at me. "I've had the barn gateway sealed permanently on both sides."
"I'm sorry, sir," I said. But inside, I wasn't. Even though I'd only been away for a few days, I'd had the adventure of a lifetime: smoked and drank and been 'jacked and escaped and received a secret message. My Mama seemed shorter to me, and frailer, and James H Johnstone was a puffed-up nothing of a poltroon.
"We'll put it behind us, son," he said. "But from now on, there will be order in our household, do we understand each-other?"
Ourhouse? I looked up sharply at my Mama. She smiled at me, nervously. "We married, James. A month ago. Congratulate me!"
I thought about it. My Mama needed someone around to take care of her, and vice-versa. After all, it wasn't right for her to be all alone. With a start, I realised that in my mind, I'd left my Mama's house. I felt the Wells-Fargo notes in my pocket.
"Congratulations, Mama. Congratulations, Mr Johnstone."
Mama hugged me again and the Mr Johnstone drove us home in the trap.
#
All through the rest of the day, Mama kept looking worriedly at me, whenever she thought I wasn't watching. I pretended not to notice, and did my chores, then took myChronicleout to the apple orchard behind the Academy. I sat beneath a big, shady tree and re-read the paper, all the curious bits and pieces of a city frozen in time.
I was hardly surprised to see Mr Adelson, nor did he seem surprised to see me.
"Back from France, James?"
"Yes, sir."
"Looks like it did you some good, though I must say, we missed you around theAcademy. It just wasn't the same. Have you been keeping up your writing?"
"Sorry, sir, I haven't. There hasn't been time. I'm thinking about writing an adventure story, though — about pirates and space-travellers and airships," I said.
"That sound exciting." He sat down beside me, and we sat there in silence for a time, watching the flies buzz around. The air was sweet with apple blossoms, and the only sound was the wind in the trees.
"I'm going to miss this place," I said, unthinking.
"Me, too," Mr Adelson said.
Our eyes locked, and a slow smile spread over his face. "Well, I know whereI'mgoing, but where are you off to, son?"
"You're going away?" I said.
"Yes, sir. Is that a copy of theChronicle? Give it here, I'll show you something."
He flipped through the pages, and pointed to an advertisement. "TheSlippery Trickis in port, and they're signing on crew for a run through the south seas, in September. I intend to go as Quartermaster."
"You're leaving?" I said, shocked to my boots.
To my surprise, he pulled out a pouch of tobacco and some rolling papers and rolled himself a cigarette. I'd never seen a schoolteacher smoking before. He took a thoughtful puff and blew the smoke out into the sky. "To tell you the truth, James, I just don't think I'm cut out for this line of work. Not enough excitement in a town like this. I've never been happier than I was when I was at sea, and that's as good a reason to go back as any. I'll miss you, though, son. You were a delight to teach."
"But what will I do?" I said.
"Why, I expect your mother will send you back East to go to school. I graduated you from the Academyin absentiaduring the last week of classes. Your report card and diploma are waiting on my desk."
"Graduated?" I said, shocked. I had another year to go at the Academy.
"Don't look so surprised! There was no earthly reason for you to stay at the Academy. I'd say you were ready for college, myself. Maybe Harvard!" He tousled my hair.
I allowed myself a smile — I didn't think I was any smarter than the other kids, but I sure knew a whole lot more about the world — the worlds! And maybe, in my heart of hearts, I knew that I was alittlesmarter. "I'll miss you, sir," I said.
"Call me Robert. School's out. Where are you off to, James?"
I gestured with my copy of theChronicle.
"My home town! Whatever for?"
I looked at my shoes.
"Oh, a secret. I see. Well, I won't pry. Does your mother know about this?"
I felt like kicking myself. If I said no, he'd have to tell her. If I said yes, I'd only have myself to blame if he spilled the news to her. I looked at him, and he blew a streamer of smoke into the sky. "No, sir," I said. "No, Robert."
He looked at me. He winked. "Better keep it to ourselves, then," he said.
#
The ticket-girl at the Castro Theatre wasn't any older than I was, but she wore her hair shorter than some of the boys I'd known back home, and more makeup than even the painted ladies at the saloon. She looked at me like I was some kind of small-town fool. It was a look I was getting used to seeing.
"Reddekop only plays for theeveningshows, kid. No organ for thematinee."
"Who you calling a kid?" I said. I'd kept a civil tongue ever since debarking the train, treating adult and kid with equal respect, but I was getting sick of being treated like a yokel. I'd been farther than any of these dusty slickers would ever go, and I was grown enough that I'd told my Mama and Mr Johnstone that I was going off on my own, instead of just leaving a note like I'd originally planned.
"You. Kid. You want to talk to Reddekop, you come back after six. In the meantime, you can either buy a ticket to the matinee or get lost."
On reflection, telling my Mama was probably a mistake. It meant that I was locked in my room for two consecutive Wednesdays so that I couldn't catch the train. On the third Wednesday, I climbed out onto the roof and then went down the rope-ladder I'd hidden behind a chimney. The Wells Fargo notes I'd started with were almost gone, mostly spent on the expensive food on the train — I hadn't dared try to sneak any food away from home, my Mama was no fool.
I thought about buying a ticket to the matinee. I still had almost five dollars, but a quick look at the menus in the restaurants had taught me that if I thought the food on the train was expensive, I had another think coming. I shouldered my rucksack and wandered away, taking care to avoid the filth from dogs and people that littered the sidewalks. I told myself that I wasn't homesick — just tired.
#
"October 29, 1929, huh?" Reddekop was a small German with a greying spade beard and a heavily oiled part in his long hair. His fingers were long and nimble, but nearly everything else about him was short and crude. He made me nervous.
"Yes, sir. Mr Nussbaum thought you'd know what it meant."
Reddekop struck a match off the side of the organist's pit, lighted a pipe, then tossed the match carelessly into the theatre seats. I winced and he chuckled. "Not to worry, kid. The place won't burn down for a few years yet. I have it on the very best authority.
"Now, Nussbaum says October 29, 1929. What else does he say?"
"He said that you'd take care of me."
He gripped the pipe in his yellow teeth and hissed a laugh around the stem. "He did, did he? Well, I suppose I should. Of course, I won't know for sure for more than 25 years — I don't suppose you want to wait that long?"
"No, sir!" I said. I didn't like this little man — he reminded me of some kind of musical rat.
"I thought not. Do you know what a trust is, James?"
We'd covered that in common law — I could rattle off about thirty different kinds without blinking. "I have a general idea," I said.
"Good, good. What I'm thinking is, the best thing is for me to set up a trust through a lawyer I know on Market Street. He'll make sure that you're always flush, but never so filthy that someone will take a notice in you. How does that strike you?"
I thought it over. "How do I know that the trust fund won't disappear in a few years?"
"You're nobody's fool, huh? Well, how about this — you find your own advocate: a lawyer, a bondsman, someone you trust, and he can look over all the books and papers, make sure it's all square-john. How does that strike you?"
Reddekop knew I was a stranger in town, and maybe he was counting on my not being able to find anyone qualified to audit the trust, but I had an ace up my sleeve. I wasn't anybody's fool.
"That sounds fair," I said.
#
Back at my Mama's I'd had long hard days, doing chores: chopping wood, stacking hay, weeding the garden, carrying water. I'd go to bed bone-tired, limp as a rag and as exhausted as I thought I could be.
Boy, was I wrong! By the time I found Mr Adelson's rooming house, I could barely stand, my mouth was dry as a salt-flat, and it was hard to keep my eyes open. They've got hills in San Francisco that must've been some kind of joke God played. His landlady, a worn-out grey woman whose sour expression seemed directed at everything and anything, let me in and pointed me up three rickety flights of stairs to Mr Adelson's room.
I dragged my luggage up with me, bumping it on the stairs, and rapped on the door. Mr Adelson answered in the same shirtsleeves and suspenders I'd seen him in that Christmas, an age ago, when my Mama dragged me to his cottage. "James!" he said.
"Mr Adelson," I said. "Sorry to drop in like this."
He took my bag from me and ushered me into his room, pulling up a chair. "What on earth are you doing here?" he said. "Do your parents know where you are? Are you all right? Have you eaten? Are you hungry?"
"I'm pretty hungry — I haven't eaten since supper last night on the train," I tried to make it sound jaunty, but I'm afraid it came out pretty tired-sounding."
"I'll fix us sandwiches," he said, and started fishing around his sea-chest. I watched his shoulders move for a moment, and then my eyes closed.
#
"Well, good morning," Mr Adelson said, as I sat bolt upright, disoriented in a strange bed with a strange blanket. "Coffee?"
He was leaning over a little Sterno stove, heating up a small tin pot. Morning sun streamed in through the grimy window.
"I wrapped your sandwich up from last night. It's there, on the dresser."
I stood up and saw that except for my shoes, I was still dressed. The sandwichwas salt beef and cheese, and the sourdough was stale, and it was the best thingI'd ever eaten. Mr Adelson handed me a tin cup full of strong coffee, and thoughI don't much like coffee, I found myself drinking it as fast as I could.
"Thank you, Mr Adelson," I said.
"Robert," he said, and sat down on the room's only chair. I perched on the bed's end. "Well, you seem to have had quite a day! Let's hear about it."
I told him as much as I could, fudging around some of the details — my Mama surely did know where I was, even if she wasn't very happy about it; and of course, I couldn't tell him that I'd met Nussbaum in 1975, so I just moved the locale to France, and caged around what message he'd asked me to deliver to Reddekop. It still made for a pretty exciting telling.
"So you want me to go to this lawyer's office with you? To look over the papers?James, I'm just a sailor, I'm not qualified."
I'd prepared for this argument, on the long slog to the rooming house. "ButIknow something about this; they won't believe it, though, and will slip all kinds of dirty tricks in if they think that the only fellow who'll be looking at it is just a kid."
"Explain to me again why you don't want to wire Mr Johnstone to come and look it over? It sounds like an awful lot of money for him not to be involved."
"He's not my Pa, Robert. I don't evenlikehim, and chances are, he'll hide away all that money until I'm eighteen ortwenty-one, and try to send me off to school."
"And what's wrong with that? You have other plans?"
"Sure," I said, too loudly — I hadn't really worked that part out. I just knew that the next time I set foot in New Jerusalem, I'd be my own man, a man of the world, and not dependent on anyone. I'd take Mama and Mr Johnstone out for a big supper, and stay in the fanciest room at the Stableman's hotel, and hire Tommy Benson to carry my bags to my room. "Besides, I'm not asking you to do this forfree. I'll pay you a — an administrative fee. Five percent,for life!"
He looked serious. "James, if I do this — mind I saidif— I won't take a red cent. There are things here that you're not telling me. Now, that's your business, but I want to make sure that if anyone ever scrutinises the affair, that it's clear that I didn't receive any benefit from it."
I smiled. I knew I had him — if he'd thought it that far through, he wasn't going to say no. Besides, I hadn't even played my trump card yet: that if he didn't help me, I'd be out on the streets on my own, and I could tell that he didn't like that idea.
#
Mr Adelson wore his teacher clothes for the affair and I wore the good breeches and shirt I'd packed. We stopped at a barber's before, Mr Adelson treated me to a haircut from the number-two man while he took a shave and a trim. We boarded the cablecar to Market like a couple of proper gentlemen, and if I thought flying in a jetpack was exciting, it was nothing compared to the terror of hanging on the running-board of a cablecar as it laboured up and then — quickly! — down a monster hill.
The lawyer was a foreigner, a Frenchie or a Belgian, and his offices were grubby and filled with stinking cigar smoke and the din of the trolleys. He asked no embarrassing questions of me. He just sized up Mr Adelson, then put away the papers on his desk and presented a set from his briefcase, laying out the terms of the trust, and retreated from the office. I read over Mr Adelson's shoulder, the terms scribbled in a hasty hand, but every word of it legal and binding, near as I could tell.
The amounts in question were staggering. Two hundred dollars, every month! Indexed for inflation, for seventy years or the duration of my natural life, whichever was lesser. The records of the trust to be deposited with the Wells Fargo, subject to scrutiny on demand. Mr Adelson looked long and hard at me. "James, I can't begin to imagine what sort of information you've traded for this, but son, you're rich as Croesus!"
"Yes, sir," I said.
"Do these papers look legal to you?"
"Yes, sir."
"They seem legal to me, too."
A bubble of excitement filled my chest and I had to restrain myself from bouncing on my heels. "I'm going to sign it," I said. "Will you witness it?"
"I've got a better idea. Let's get that lawyer and take this down to the WellsFargo and have the President of the Bank witness it himself."
And that's just what we did.
#
Mr Adelson had spent the previous night on the floor, while I slept in his bed. My first month's payment was tucked carefully in my pocket, and over his protests, I pried loose a few bills and took my own room in the rooming house, and then the two of us ate out at a restaurant whose prices had seemed impossibly out-of-reach the day before. We had oysters and steaks and I had a slab of apple pie for desert with fresh ice cream and peach syrup, and when I was done, I felt like new man. Mr Adelson had a bottle of beer with dinner, and a whiskey afterwards, and I insisted on paying.
"Well, then," he said, sipping his whiskey. "You're a very well-set-up young man. What will you do now?"
All throughout my scheming since my second return from 75, the prospect of what to do with all the money had niggled away at the back of my mind. All I knew for sure was that I didn't want to grow up in New Jerusalem. I wanted adventure, exotic places and people, danger and excitement. Over dinner, though, a plan had been forming in my head.
"Does theSlippery Trickneed a cabin-boy?"
He shook his head and smiled at me. "I was afraid it was something like that. Son, you could pay for a stateroom on a proper liner with all the money you have. Why would you want to be in charge of chamber-pots on a leaky old tub?"
"Why do you want to sail off on a leaky old tub instead of teaching in Utah, or working on the trolleys here?"
It took me most of the night to convince him, but there was no doubt in my mind that I would, and when the ship sailed, that I'd be on it, with a big, leather-bound log, writing stories.
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