Robert Silverberg - Stepsons of Terra

Whatever that had been, Ewing thought.

The afternoon slipped by. At length Myreck said, “We also have done much work in temporal theory, you know. Our machines are in the lower levels of the building. If you are interested—”

“Nol” Ewing said, so suddenly and so harshly it was almost a shout. In a more modulated tone he went on, “I mean—no, thanks. I’ll have to beg off on that. It’s getting quite late, and I’m sure I’d find the time machines so fascinating I’d overstay my visit.”

“But we are anxious to have you spend as much time with us as you can,” Myreck protested. “If you want to see the machines—”

“No,” Ewing repeated forcefully. “I’m afraid I must leave.”

“In that case, we will drive you to your hotel.”

This must be the point of divergence, Ewing thought, as the Earthers showed him to the door and performed the operations that made it possible to pass back into phase with the world of Foumight the Thirteenth outside. My predecessor never got back out of this building. He doubled into Twonight instead. The cycle is broken.

He entered the car, and it pulled away from the street. He looked back, at the empty lot that was not empty.

“Some day you must examine our machines,” Myreck said.

“Yes… yes, of course,” Ewing replied vaguely. “As soon as I’ve taken care of a few pressing matters.”

But tomorrow I’ll be on my way back to Corwin, he thought. I guess I never will see your machines.

He realized that by his actions this afternoon he had brought a new chain of events into existence; he had reached back into Twoday and, by not rescuing Firnik’s prisoner, had created a Ewing-sub-three who had been mind-picked by the Sirian and who presumably had died two days before. Thus Firnik believed Ewing was dead, no doubt. He would be surprised tomorrow when a ghost requisitioned the ship in storage at Valloin Spaceport and blasted off for Corwin.

Ewing frowned, trying to work out the intricacies of the problem. Well, it didn’t matter, he thought. The step had been taken.

For better or for worse, the time-track had been altered.

Ewing checked out of the Grand Valloin Hotel the next afternoon. It was a lucky thing, he thought, that the management had awarded him that week’s free rent; otherwise, thanks to the kidnaping, he would never have been able to” settle up. He had only ten credits, and those were gifts from his phantom rescuer, now dead. The bill came to more than a hundred.

The desk-robot was distantly polite as Ewing signed the forms severing him from relationship with the hotel, waiving right to sue for neglected property, and announcing notification of departure from Valloin. “I hope you have enjoyed your stay in this hotel,” the robot said in blurred mechanical tones as Ewing finished.

Ewing eyed the metal creature jaundicedly and said, “Oh, yes. Very much. Very much indeed.” He shoved the stack of papers across the marbled desktop and accepted his receipted bill. “You’ll have my baggage delivered to the spaceport?” he asked.

“Of course, sir. The voucher guarantees it.”

“Thanks,” Ewing said.

He strolled through the sumptuous lobby, past the light-fountain, past the relaxing-chairs, past the somewhat battered area of the energitron booth, where robots were busily replastering and repainting the damage. It was nearly as good as new. By the end of the day, there would scarcely be an indication that a man had died violently there only three days before.

He passed several Sirians on his way through the lobby to the front street, but he felt oddly calm all the same. So far as Rollun Firnik and the others were concerned, the Corwinite Baird Ewing had died under torture last Twoday. Anyone resembling him resembled him strictly by coincidence. He walked boldly through the cluster of Sirians and out onto the street level.

It was late afternoon. The street-glow was beginning to come up. A bulletin transmitted via telestat had informed the hotel patrons that eighteen minutes of light rain was scheduled for 1400 that Fiveday, and Ewing had delayed his departure accordingly. Now the streets were fresh and sweet-smelling.

Ewing boarded the limousine that the hotel used for transporting its patrons to and from the nearby spaceport, and looked around for his final glance at the Grand Valloin Hotel. He felt tired and a little sad at leaving Earth; there were so many reminders of past glories here, so many signs of present decay. It had been an eventful stay for him, but yet curiously eventless; he was returning to Corwin with nothing concrete gained, nothing learned but the fact that there was no help to be had.

He pondered the time-travel question for a moment. Obviously the Earther machine—along with all its other paradoxical quahties—was able to create matter where none had existed before. It had drawn from somewhere the various Ewing bodies, of which at least two and possibly more had existed simultaneously. And it seemed that once a new body was drawn from the fabric of time, it remained in existence, conterminous with his fellows. Otherwise, Ewing thought, my refusal to go back and carry out the rescue would have snuffed me out. It didn’t. It merely ended the life of that “Ewing” in the torture-chamber on Twoday.

“Spaceport,” a robot voice announced.

Ewing followed the line into the Departures shed. He noticed there were few Earthers in Departures; only some Sirians and a few of the non-humanoid aliens were leaving Earth. He joined a line that inched up slowly to a robot clerk.

When it was Ewing’s turn, he presented his papers. The robot scanned them quickly.

“You are Baird Ewing of the Free World of Corwin?”

“That’s right.”

“You arrived on Earth on Fiveday, seventh of Fifthmonth of this year?”

Ewing nodded.

“Your papers are in order. Your ship has been stored in Hangar 107-B. Sign this, please.”

It was a permission-grant allowing the spaceport attendants to get his ship from drydock, service it for departure, store his belongings on board, and place the vessel on the blasting field. Ewing read the form through quickly, signed it, and handed it back.

“Please go to Waiting Room Y and remain there until your name is called. Your ship should be ready for you in less than an hour.”

Ewing moistened his lips. “Does that mean you’ll page me over the public address system?”

“Yes.”

The idea of having his name called out, with so many Sirians in the spaceport, did not appeal to him. He said, “I’d prefer not to be paged by name. Can some sort of code word be used?”

The robot hesitated. “Is there some reason—”

“Yes.” Ewing’s tone was flat. “Suppose you have me paged under the name of… ah… Blade. That’s it. Mr. Blade.

All right?”

Doubtfully the robot said, “It is irregular.”

“Is there anything in the regulations specifically prohibiting such a pseudonym?”

“No, but—”

“If regulations say nothing about it, how can it be irregular? Blade it is, then.”

It was easy to baffle robots. The sleek metal face would probably be contorted in bewilderment, if that were possible. At length the robot assented; Ewing grinned cheerfully at it and made his way to Waiting Room Y.

Waiting Room Y was a majestic vault of a room, with a glittering spangled ceiling a hundred feet above his head, veined with glowing rafters of structural beryllium. Freeform blobs of light, hovering suspended at about the eighty-foot level, provided most of the illumination. At one end of the room a vast loud-speaker had been erected; at the other, a screen thirty feet square provided changing kaleidoscopic patterns of light for bored waiters.