Mack Reynolds - Equality - In the Year 2000

It was her turn to look blank. “How did it—”

“Damned if I know. I never figured it out.”

She smiled. “Well, let’s go see the sabertooth.”

He said, “Just a moment. First, possibly we should talk about that discussion I was having with your Father.”

She settled back into her seat on the bench. “I forgot. It’s always so fascinating to bring these new things to you.”

He said very deliberately, “Your apartment and mine have been bugged. That is, someone has tapped both our TV phones, and has installed electronic devices that enable them to hear every conversation that takes place in your apartment. I’ve gimmicked the one bug they had in my place, but I assume they’ll either try to repair it or put a new one in shortly.”

She eyed him. “But… who?”

“I’m not sure, but I have my suspicions. Your father is evidently knee-deep in what we would have called ‘politics’ in my time.”

Her eyes turned thoughtful.

Julian said softly, “I lied to young Sean the other day.”

Her forehead wrinkled. “How do you mean?”

“I know of at least ten persons I have killed. At least. Men, women, and… one child. In the last case, we were racing through a small hamlet, scared to death, anything that moved…”

“What are you talking about? You sound half out of your mind.”

“I’m talking about the fact that for some reason which I don’t understand, because I’m out of my depth in this world of yours, somebody is making an attempt on your father’s life. And, so far as I know, I am probably the most competent bodyguard alive in United America.”

“You’re insane!”

“Yes, you said that. Now, this is what I need. You say you are a student of anthropology and archaeology. I assume you have access to museums. I want a high-calibered handgun, a nine-millimeter Luger or a .45 Colt. I want at least twenty rounds of ammunition for it and two clips, magazines, the things that hold the cartridges. I also need a combat knife… a trench knife, they sometimes call them. I don’t know what you’ll be able to steal out of the museums in this immediate vicinity. If you can get more than one trench knife, try to do so, so I can have a choice. The German ones can be used as throwing knives, as well as a close-combat weapon. That’s the one I would prefer, but do the best you can.”

“You’re mad!”

“Yes, of course. And your fathers life, and mine, and possibly yours are in immediate danger. I haven’t the vaguest idea in hell why.”

“But if someone hated my father so much, why haven’t they already killed him?”

“Possibly they’ve already tried and were too inept. In the past few days he’s been mugged and an attempt made to wreck his car while he was going at high speed. Get the gun and trench knife, Edith. Immediately. And now let’s go see that sabertooth, and the dragons. I still can’t believe it.”

There seemed to be somewhat of a change in the quality of Julian West’s dreams since he had arrived in the twenty-first century, rather, the First Century, New Calendar, as they called it now. From time to time he had flashbacks to yesteryear that weren’t particularly nightmares, but simply a reliving of the past. But no, this particular one was a nightmare.

It had been on a trip from their Miami Beach home to Nassau, in the Bahamas, on his father’s yacht. Go West , a one-hundred twenty-foot motor cruiser. Barry and Betty West had invited three other couples, and Julian, who was only six or seven at the time, was allowed to come. The crew consisted of six: the captain, the engineer, two hands and two in the steward department. The captain and engineer were full-time employees, but Barry West made it a practice to hire the hands only when he planned a cruise. The two stewards, one of whom doubled as cook, were employees in the West mansion in Miami Beach and were drafted each time the Go West shipped out. It wasn’t a matter of expense; the Wests simply liked to be in the care of servants who knew exactly how they liked things.

The dream began early in the morning.

Julian, who had a small stateroom of his own toward the stern, had awakened and dressed himself, and momentarily considered going to the master stateroom up foreward to see if his mother and father would invite him into their bed for a romp. But no, he decided, they had all been drinking very heavily the day before, and he had been able to hear them late into the night. It was nothing new; he would be hard put to remember an evening when his parents weren’t wobbly with drink. He then considered going to the galley and seeing if Edward was available to talk to. But no, Edward would probably be busy getting ready for breakfast. If past cruises were any criteria, breakfast would stretch over several hours as the hungover guests emerged one by one from their cabins.

Edward was a favorite of little Julian’s—one of the few West servants who, when they were alone, treated him as an individual rather than as “the young master.” He spent as much time as Edward could find free talking to the middle-aged, sad-faced servant. Edward had been around for as long as Julian could remember, which was exceptional in the West household. Servants were apt to come and go, particularly when one or the other or both of the Wild Wests got on a nasty binge.

Julian decided instead to go up to the bridge and see if the captain would let him play around the ship’s controls. Perhaps he could even steer. He loved to steer and usually Captain Fielding didn’t mind on a clear day when the sea wasn’t too choppy.

He made his way up to the deck and then climbed the aft ladderway to the sundeck. For a time he stood at the fantail rail. The overcast was starting to burn off and the sea was beginning to glint. The yacht was quartering into a northeast wind, the propellers churning up the impossibly blue Bahama waters. Three gulls followed gracefully. He knew that had it been night, there would be a faint green-white phosphorescence in the wake.

He turned and went foreward to the topside controls, forward of the sundeck. But the captain wasn’t there. The yacht was on autopilot and one of the seamen, the one called Jack, was on watch. Julian instinctively knew that Jack didn’t like small boys, even if he was in no position to do or say anything about it.

Julian took the co-pilot seat and sat there awhile, his hands in his lap. They were already in the Bahama archipelago, and passing through scores of small islands and islets, coral reefs and shoals. From time to time he could spot colorful birds and once they passed fifteen pelicans standing on a bar in a straight line in a couple of inches of water.

Julian stood on the co-pilot seat and lifted the two sight vanes of the pelorus atop the gyrocompass. He moved the pelorus around so that he could take a bearing on a small lighthouse on an islet about a mile off. Captain Fielding had shown him how to take a bearing. He wasn’t quite sure why you took a bearing, but he knew it was part of running the ship and he was proud that he could do it.

Jack said grumpily, “Maybe you shouldn’t do that, boy.”

Julian looked at the other levelly for a moment. The man had seen Julian playing with the pelorus before, when the captain was present. However, Julian was in no mood to make an issue of it. Even at this early time in life he disliked controversy and avoided it when he could. It was probably a reaction against all the tiffs, the emotional crises, the verbal brawls that were almost the daily diet of the West family.

He got down from the seat without a word and left. He went down to the lounge and found that there was still no one up. He passed through it, and walked past the galley. He peered in but both his friend Edward and the cook were much too busy to bother with him. He went on down the corridor to the master bedroom. He’d peer in and see if Barry and Betty were still asleep.