Robert Silverberg - The Far Side of the Bell-Shaped Curve

Reichenbach said, “I have to speak quickly. You will go out there and near the Bank of Austria-Hungary you’ll meet the most wonderful woman you’ve ever known, and you’ll share with her the greatest joy you’ve ever tasted. And just as your love for her reaches its deepest strength, you’ll lose her to a rival—unless you cooperate with me to rid us of him before they can ever meet.”

The eyes of the other Reichenbach narrowed. “Murder?”

“Removal. We’ll put him in the way of harm, and harm will come to him.”

“Is the woman such a marvel that the risks are worth it?”

“I swear it. I tell you, you’ll suffer pain beyond belief if he isn’t eliminated. Trust me. My welfare is your welfare, is this not so?”

“Of course.” But the other Reichenbach looked unconvinced. “Still, why must there be two of us in this? It’s not yet my affair, after all.”

“It will be. He’s too slippery to tackle without help. I need you. And ultimately you’ll be grateful to me for this. Take it on faith.”

“And what if this is some elaborate game, and I the victim?”

“Damn it, this is no game! Our happiness is at stake—Yours, mine. We’re both in this together. We’re closer than any twins could ever be, don’t you realize? You and me, different phases of the same person’s time-line, following the same path? Our destinies are linked. Help me now or live forever with the torment of the consequences. Please help. Please.”

The other was wavering. “You ask a great deal.”

“I offer a great deal,” Reichenbach said. “Look, there’s no more time for talking now. You have to get out there and meet Ilsabet before the archduke’s assassination. Meet me in Paris, noon on the twenty-fifth of June, 1794, in the rue de Rivoli outside the Hôtel de Ville.” He grasped the other’s arm and stared at him with all the intensity and conviction at his command. “Agreed?”

A last moment of hesitation.

“Agreed.”

Reichenbach touched his timer and disappeared.

In Babylon again he gathered his possessions and jaunted to the halfway house for the French Revolution. Momentarily he dreaded running into his other self there, a malfeasance that would be hard to justify, but the place was too big for that; the Revolution and Terror spanned five years and an immense service facility was needed to handle the tourist demand. Outfitted in the simple countryfolk clothes appropriate to the revolutionary period, equipped with freshly implanted linguistic skills and proper revolutionary rhetoric, altogether disguised to blend with the citizenry, Reichenbach descended into the terrible heat of that bloody Parisian summer and quickly effected his rendezvous with himself.

The face he beheld was clearly his, and yet unfamiliar, for he was accustomed to his mirror image; but a mirror image is a reversed one, and now he saw himself as others saw him and nothing looked quite right. This is what it must be like to have a twin, he thought. In a low, hoarse voice he said, “She’s coming tomorrow to hear Robespierre’s final speech and then to see his execution. Our enemy is in Paris already, with rooms at the Hôtel Brittanique in the rue Guénégaud. I’ll track him down while your make contact with the Committee of Public Safety. I’ll bring him here; you arrange the trap and the denunciation; with any luck he’ll be hauled away in the same tumbrel that takes Robespierre to the guillotine. D’accord?”

“D’accord.” A radiance came into the other’s eyes. Softly he said, “You were right about Ilsabet. For such a woman even this is justifiable.”

Reichenbach felt an unexpected pang. But to be jealous of himself was an absurdity. “Where have you been with her?”

“After Sarajevo, Nero’s Rome. She’s asleep there now, our third night: I intend to be gone only an instant. We go next to Shakespeare’s time, and then—”

“Yes, I know. Socrates, Magellan, Vasco da Gama. All the best still lies ahead for you. But first there’s work to do.”

Without great difficulty he found his way to the Hôtel Brittanique, a modest place not far from the Pont Neuf. The concierge, a palsied woman with a thin-lipped mouth fixed in an unchanging scowl, offered little aid until Reichenbach spoke of the committee, the Law of Suspects, the dangers of refusing to cooperate with the revolutionary tribunal; then she was quick enough to admit that a dark man of great height with a beard of just the sort that M’sieu described was living on the fifth floor, a certain M. Stavanger. Reichenbach rented the adjoining room. He waited there an hour, until he heard the footsteps in the hallway, sounds next door.

He went out and knocked.

Stavanger peered blankly at him. “Yes?”

He has not yet met her, Reichenbach thought. He has not yet spoken with her, he has not yet touched her body, they have not yet gone to their damned operas together. And never will.

He said, “This is a wonderful place for a jaunt, isn’t it.”

“Who are you?”

“Reichenbach is my name. My friend and I saw you in the street and she sent me up to speak with you.” He made a little self-deprecating gesture. “I often act as her—ah—go-between. She wishes to know if you’ll meet her this afternoon and perhaps enjoy a day or two of French history with her. Her name is Ilsabet, and I can testify that you’ll find her charming. Her particular interests are assassinations, architecture, and the first performances of great operas.”

Stavanger showed sudden alertness. “Opera is a great passion of mine,” he said. “Ordinarily I keep to myself when jaunting, but in this case—the possibilities—is she downstairs? Can you bring her to me?”

“Ah, no. She’s waiting in front of the Hôtel de Ville.”

“And wants me to come to her?”

Reichenbach nodded. “Certain protocols are important to her.”

Stavanger, after a moment’s consideration, said, “Take me to your Ilsabet, then. But I make no promises. Is that understood?”

“Of course,” said Reichenbach.

The streets were almost empty at this hour. The miasma of the atmosphere in this heavy heat must be a factor in that, Reichenbach thought, and also that it was midday and the Parisians were at their déjeuner; but beyond that it seemed that the city was suffering a desolation of the spirit, a paralysis of energy under the impact of the monstrous bloodletting of recent months.

He walked quickly, struggling to keep up with Stavanger’s long strides. As they approached the Hôtel de Ville, Reichenbach caught sight of his other self, and with him two or three men in revolutionary costume. Good. Good. The other Reichenbach nodded. Everything was arranged. The challenge now was to keep Stavanger from going for his timer the moment he sensed he was in jeopardy.

“Where as she?” Stavanger asked.

“I left her speaking with that group of men,” said Reichenbach. The other Reichenbach stood with his face turned aside—a wise move. Now, though they had not rehearsed it, they moved as if parts of a single organism, the other Reichenbach pivoting, pointing, crying out, “I accuse that man of crimes against liberty,” while in the same instant Reichenbach stepped behind Stavanger, thrust his arms up past those of the taller man, reached into Stavanger’s loose tunic to wrench his timer into ruin with one quick twist, and held him firmly. Stavanger bellowed and tried to break free, but in a moment the street was full of men who seized and overpowered him and dragged him away. Reichenbach, panting, sweating, looked in triumph toward his other self.

“That one, too,” said the other Reichenbach.

Reichenbach blinked. “What?”

Too late. They had his arms; the other Reichenbach was groping for his timer, seizing, tearing. Reichenbach fought ferociously, but they bore him to the ground and knelt on his chest.