Frederik Pohl - The Coming of the Quantum Cats

It had. They were.

By the middle of the slow movement there were gap-toothed empty seats in every part of the house. When I finished my tricky, and beautiful, crescendo in the third, the applause was lean. It wasn't lack of enthusiasm, I thought. It was lack of people. Slavi looked at me. I looked at Slavi. We both shrugged in baffled resignation.

For decency's sake we took two bows. Then we retired from the stage and didn't come back, giving the audience a chance to escape—as many of them were anxious to do.

As curiosity made many of us on the stage eager to do.

It was worse for Slavi than for me. I was through for the evening and glad of it, while he would have to come back after the intermission to do the second half of the program. It was Mahier, and both of us knew there would not be much of a crowd to sit through that interminable First Symphony.

When we found out what was happening that became a certainty.

The first one to get to us to tell us was my dresser, Amy. Amy doesn't really "dress" me, although I'm sure she would if she had to. What she does is take care of me. She keeps an eye on the Guarnerius when I put it down for a moment; she makes sure I have a dress without stains or wrinkles to wear for the concert, and another for the usual party afterward; she sees that there are always tampons in the side pocket of my music bag. She does all that, and one big other thing. She keeps my husband from getting suspicious when I'm off somewhere with Dom.

She also tells me what I need to know, even if I'm not going to like it. Especially if I'm not going to like it. Of all the shocked, scared, and worried expressions backstage that night, hers was the most upset; but she pushed through the muttering, whispering stagehands and musicians to get to us. "Nyla," she wailed, "Albuquerque's gone crazy!"

Albuquerque was, of course, where the Sandia base was. Where Dominic was. I stopped short. My knees went weak. From behind me

Slavi caught one arm. Amy caught the violin and then the other arm, in that order.

"And Dom?" I croaked.

"Oh, Nyla," Amy said, sobbing, "he's the worst of the lot!"

A man named Dominic DeSota, sweating as he moved through the reeds around the old water-detention pond, raised his head from his work. He thought he saw a sudden glow of orange light in the sky toward the southeast, in the place where Chicago had once been. It wasn't an illusion. It was a real burnishing of the low clouds, as though there were a huge, distant fire. He stood up straight, peering What were those lights off on the horizon? There were streams of white, streams of red, the white lights coming toward him and the reds away. It was almost as though there were cars again! But they disappeared in the wink of an eye and he was alone in the sultry night. He returned to the job of emptying the last trap on his line, where what had once been someone's pet angora hissed and spat. It was no longer sleek, fat, and pretty, but DeSota was glad to see it. It was dinner.

23 August 1983

10:20 P.M. Major DeSOTA, Dominic P.

It was just the purest chance that the first prisoner I took was myself.

I would have seen me sooner or later, of course. We knew I was there. Maybe "I"—that "I" who was now my prisoner—did "me"— the me who nailed him—a favor, because one of the reasons I got command of the first assault detachment through the portal was that Senator Dominic DeSota was there. (Senator! How had that happened? How had I risen so high in his timeline, and only to the damn dumb rank of field officer, and reserve at that, in my own? But that other DeSota's position was going to help me elevate mine. . .

"They're ready, sir," said Sergeant Sambok.

"Good-oh," I told her, and followed her back upstairs to the office of the chief scientist. I didn't have time to think about the grammatical games we were learning to play—the "I" that watched "me" through the peepers, the "them" that were "us." I didn't have time to wonder at what I'd wondered at a time or two before, either—namely, at the curious coincidences between that Dom DeSota's life and my own. Our lives were different in tremendous ways. But both of us had wound up involved in the parallel-time situation— and not, of course, just "both" of us, because there were all those other Dominic DeSotas in all the other times. The tech advisors had no time for such questions. I knew that was so, because I'd asked them. All they would say, not counting mathematics, was mumblemumble, after all, we Dominic DeSotas had genes in common; had boyhoods in common, anyway up to whenever the point of separation was; we'd read the same books and seen the same movies. So naturally we set into similar molds. .

"Right in here, sir," said the sergeant, and I walked through the door she held open for me into the office of the operating head of the Cathouse, as these people had amusingly named their parallel-time project.

The Signal Corps lieutenant said, "You're on in thirty seconds, Major."

"Right," I said, and sat down at the desk. It was clean—the chief scientist was one of those security-conscious guys, no doubt. The only thing on it was the Signal Corps microphone with the wires that led to the backpack transmitter on the lieutenant's helper. I tested the drawers. Locked, but we'd take care of that in a minute.

"Break a leg, sir," said Sergeant Sambok, grinning at me through her camouflage makeup, and I was on.

"Ladies and gentlemen," I said into the microphone, "this is Dominic DeSota. Urgent circumstances have led to the necessity for a precautionary action at Sandia Base and nearby. There is nothing for you to fear. In one hour we will make a television broadcast through the local stations. All networks are urged to carry it live, and at that time the necessity for this action will be made clear."

I looked at the lieutenant, who drew his finger across his throat. The corporal with the backpack moved a switch, and I was off the air.

"See you later, Major," the lieutenant said, and followed his crew out of the room.

I leaned back, testing the leather chair. These people did themselves well; there were paintings on the wall and carpeting on the floor. "How'd it go, Nyla?" I asked.

She grinned. "Really well, Major. If you ever get out of soldiering, you ought to get into radio."

"I'm too big to fit into those little-bitty sets," I told her. "Have you notified Tac-Five this building is secure?"

"Yes, sir. Tac-Five says, 'Well done, Major DeSota.' The follow-on echelons have taken the next six buildings too. The whole area is secure."

"The prisoners?"

"We set up a stockade in the parking lot. Corporal Harris and three men are guarding them."

"Fine, fine," I said, pulling at the locked drawers again. I'd taken over the chief scientist's office, but unfortunately the chief scientist had been off the base at the moment. He had taken his keys with him. An annoyance, not a problem. "Open this up for me, Sergeant," I said, and Sergeant Sambok studied the locks for a moment, gauged the angle of possible ricochets, then placed the muzzle of her carbine a few inches from the lock. As she shot it out, .25 caliber bullets whined across the office.

The drawers opened with no further trouble. Inside was the usual mess of disorderly stuff you find in a neat man's desk, but among the mess were a couple of notebooks and a whole drawer of files. Of course, we'd watched these people pretty closely for months before we opened the portal, but Dr. Douglas would want to look the papers over. "Orderly," I said. Sergeant Sambok nodded, and a private popped in from the hallway. "Take this stuff back to the sally port," I ordered, juggling a slim, expensive-looking gold cigarette lighter engraved Harrah's Club, Lake Tahoe. It would have made a fine souvenir, but I put it back and slammed the drawer shut.