Frederik Pohl - The Coming of the Quantum Cats

At the top of them the President's appointments secretary was standing, tapping his foot. "Go ahead, Dom," I said, understanding. "I'll be here when you get back."

So then he was gone again, and Jackie was trying to explain what was going on on one side of me, and jock McClenty was doing the same on the other, and I finally got them both to understand that what I wanted more than explanations was a chance to freshen up a little. And a minute later they led me through a bedroom that must have been designed for the Shah of Iran—mirrors on the ceiling and, good heavens, a real Picasso on the wall—into a bathroom that had a washstand with golden knobs.

It was a good thing I had a chance to put myself together, because when I came out of the czar's bathroom into the Shah's bedroom I discovered that it had been turned into a sort of holding pen for all of us.

When I say "all of us," I don't just mean "all of us." I mean more "all" and more "us" than I had ever meant before in my life. My Dom was back—the President had kicked him out for some private confabulation with a couple of generals—and Dom and I were, of course, the big "us" in my life. But there were three of him. If you counted in the one whose face we'd seen on the TV, there were four.

And there were two of me.

I had had a lot of trouble accepting the fact that there was more than one of the man I loved, but, boy, I didn't know what trouble was until I had to face up to the other one of me. It reminded me of the time, two or three years before, when Ferdie and I had gone off for a weekend in the Wisconsin Dells to try to save our marriage. I took my spayed Siamese cat, Panther, to stay with Amy in her little apartment, along with her spayed female calico, Poo-Bear, It wasn't a happy meeting. The first thing Poo-Bear did was leap up on top of a knickknack shelf, knocking half of Amy's carved wooden animals on the floor, and the first thing Panther did was dive under a bookcase. They didn't hiss or growl or spit. They just stared at each other across the room, all the time I was there-though Amy told me later that within half an hour they were licking each other.

It was a lot like that with me and this other Nyla, although I saw no chance at all that we would ever be licking each other. She sat in one corner, looking at me and occasionally whispering to the man next to her, who looked seven feet tall and half that much wide. Nasty-looking bit of business, he was. I sat on a Queen Anne loveseat with Dom, my Dom, holding my hand and my head on his shoulder, while Dom tried to tell me what things, what amazing things, he had been doing since I saw him last. And the two of us, that Nyla and me-Nyla, stared at each other and couldn't stop.

Although I studied her more closely than I had ever inspected any other woman, I didn't notice that she had no thumbs until Dom whispered to me about it. That wasn't the only difference. The expression on her face was different from any I believed I had ever worn—cynical? Wry? Maybe even envious? All the same, she was me.

I was very, very grateful for Dom's arm around me.

With all that going on, it wasn't surprising that I didn't notice the other odd thing. The fact that there were three Doms in the room was bad enough; the presence of another Nyla than me was worse. But we weren't the only duplicates. When I finally took my eyes off the other Nyla long enough to pay attention to the others, I saw that the Kennedys were talking to two of what looked like my old friend Lavrenti Djugashvili, and they were looking at me.

"Shto eta, Lavi?" I called across the room, impartially to both of them. They both looked baffled.

Dom laughed and tightened his arm around me. "They're not the ambassador," he said. "He's out at the airport, welcoming some Russian scientists that are coming in to meet with us."

"Oh, lord," I said, laughing because it was better than crying, "are there two of everybody?"

"Not just two," he said somberly. "An infinity, I'm afraid. But of me and you, there's only one me and one you that matter, and we're together. Let's keep it that way."

So then there were suddenly two more of "us" in the room, although the new two were only imaginary. They were very clear to me, all the same, Marilyn on one side of us, Ferdie on the other, and the expressions on their faces were full of anger and hurt and accusation.

It was fortunate that they were only imaginary, at least at that moment, however real they would be later on. I closed my mind to them. "If that's a proposal," I said, "I accept. I don't want us ever to be apart again—not counting when I have to go on tour, I mean."

"And not counting election campaigns," he said, grinning. "I promise."

It is astonishing how easily you can make a promise that you will not be allowed to keep.

Still, there were the real Marilyn and the real Ferdie, and we owed them at least a little discretion until we told them what was going on. In spite of everything—in spite of all the weirdness that was happening, not to mention the fact that my country was being invaded right outside the hotel window—I could still worry about propriety. Especially when I noticed jack Kennedy studying us appraisingly out of the corner of his eye while he talked to Lavi's doubles.

I flushed and sat up. I didn't push Dom's arm away, but I moved a little bit outside of it. Dom came to the same realization I did at that same moment. I felt him lean away.

Then he came back to where our bodies were touching, and the arm was on my shoulders again. Proudly. Almost defiantly. Oh, hell, I thought, we're past the point of being discreet. If our affair had ever been a secret, our secret was no secret any more.

The luxury of the suite wasn't limited to gold bathroom fixtures. There was a kitchen attached to the suite, and a hotel chef, sous-chef, and waiter attached to the kitchen. "Eat up," said Dom— my Dom. "It's all being paid for by the taxpayer." So we ate. I found I had a ravenous appetite. So did the paratime travelers. Apparently they hadn't been fed a lot lately, and they made up for it. And there was conversation too. I didn't take much active part in it, because I was busy listening, trying to make out just what was going on.

Dom did most of the explaining, and Jack Kennedy did most of the asking. "There's a million of these time-lines, Jack," Dom said. "No, not a million. A million million million, maybe. I think the right word is infinity."

"Remackable," said jack. "I had no idea." He was sitting across from us, holding Jackie's hand as Dom was holding mine. I wished that when we were their age we would be as loving, in spite of our rather bad and adulterous beginning. (But there were all those stories about Jack and heaven knew how many women, long ago, and their marriage seemed to have survived.)

"We can only reach fairly nearby ones," said Dom. "Dr. Dom here"—he nodded in a friendly way to the one I had flung myself at, who was dubiously nibbling at a platter of falafel—"knows more about it than I do."

The other Dom swallowed. "They're almost like yours and mine," he concurred, "but there are, of course, some differences. In the one that's invading you, Jerry Brown is the President of the United States."

"Jerry Brown!" said Jack. "That's the hardest thing of all to believe."

"But it's so." The other Dom lifted a forkful of the falafel and said, "This is pretty good. I'll have to see if I can find somebody to make it back home. That's another advantage of paratime, you see, learning different things that improve the quality of life."

"I can't say ours has improved a lot, Dawm," Jack said wryly. "Go on about the other time-lines."

"Well, there are a couple where Ronnie Reagan is President."

"Ronnie?"