David Garnet - Bikini Planet

Or maybe that was the first voice. Now that they were talking amongst themselves, Norton lost track. He concentrated on his own predicament. Despite being attached to his seat, there were no ropes holding him down. He could move his limbs a short way, he realised, but it became very hard to lift them any distance. When he leaned forward, he was always dragged back. It was as if he was held by invisible elastic bands.

“They were using child labour, you notice,” said one of the voices. “Hence the word ‘cowboys’.”

“Were you a cowboy as a child, John Wayne?” asked another.

“Er… no,” said Norton.

“But you were a cowman as an adult?”

“Er… yeah.”

“Was that before you became a secret agent?”

“A secret agent?” Norton remembered his televised exaggeration to Mandy. “It was after. Well, at the same time. I used to spy on enemy ranchers.”

“Did you know James Bond?”

“Yeah. By reputation. Not personally. He was licensed to kill. I was only licensed to… er… give speeding tickets.”

“What were they?”

“If someone went too fast… er… if a cowboy went too fast… er… he had to pay money as… er…”

“You had gold and silver coins as currency, is that true?”

“Not gold,” said Norton. “Not in my time. Coins were called silver, but they weren’t. Not in my time.”

“In other words, the coins themselves were not valuable, they were merely part of a fiduciary financial system?”

“You said it,” said Norton because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“But you had paper money, and that was valuable.”

“Yeah, bills were worth more than coins.”

“As we thought!”

“Do you still have dollars?” Norton asked, checking on what Mandy and Brendan had told him.

“No, but we do use coins for low-value transactions. They have no intrinsic value, of course.”

“Of course,” said Norton.

“These dollars , as they were known, they were kept in banks ?”

“Some of them, yeah.”

“And what was the relationship between banks and bank robbers?”

“Relationship?”

“The banks employed bank robbers, did they?”

“No, not exactly. Bank robbers tended to be… er… self-employed. It was their job to… er… rob banks.”

“Why did they do that?”

“That’s where the money was.”

“Because money, this cash , was the common medium of exchange?”

“Yeah,” said Norton, which seemed the appropriate answer.

The three men glanced at each other, nodding. Because they had deep voices, he presumed they were men. Although here in the future…?

Here in the future, it seemed, the twentieth century meant cowboys and bank robbers. They were a hundred years off, but Norton wasn’t very surprised. He always got the centuries mixed up. The Declaration of Independence, for example, was in seventeen seventy-six—which was in the eighteenth century.

“Shall we punish him?” one of them suddenly said.

“Why?” asked Norton. “What for?”

“Why not?” said another.

“A beating never hurt anybody,” said the other.

“It must have done!” said Norton.

“Let’s find out,” said the one who had suggested punishment, as he stood up and stepped toward Norton. “Answer the question.”

“What question?” Norton tried to lean further back as the shadowy figure came closer, but he couldn’t move.

“Did I ask you a question?”

“Er… no.”

“Don’t say ‘no’ to me!” snarled the man, and he lashed out with his hand.

Norton was held rigid. All he could do was close his eyes. There was a whack ! But he felt nothing. He realised that the man had punched his fist into the palm of his other hand to make the sound.

“Let that be a lesson to you,” said the man, as he turned and went back.

“Well done,” said one of the others, and he produced his own sound effects with a few handclaps.

“Yes,” agreed the third, who also briefly applauded.

They had all seen too many bad films, Norton realised.

“What we would like to establish, John Wayne,” said one of them, “is precisely when your previous existence ended.”

“I’m sure that was in the interview with Miss Mandy,” said Norton. “June 26, 1968.”

His captors could only have known about Norton because they had seen him on television. The broadcast must have included Brendan’s address so customers could go along, just like in a commercial for a used-car showroom. And Norton had been up for sale, exactly like a used car. Until he was hijacked.

“That was after you went into the ammunition store,” said one of the other two.

“What?” said Norton.

“You were wounded,” said the man, “and then the storeroom exploded. That was when you died.”

Norton stared through the gloom at him. He hadn’t understood very much during his time in the twenty-third century, but one thing he was certain of: He hadn’t arrived here through the Pearly Gates.

“I didn’t die,” he said. “I was in suspended animation.”

“Why?” asked one of them.

“When?” asked another.

“We know when,” said the other. “He told us when. The question is ‘how?’ ”

“I don’t know how,” said Norton. “Or why.”

“But you know where?”

“Yes.”

“The Alamo.”

“What?”

“The fort was overrun by enemy soldiers. All your colleagues were being permanently killed. You escaped into suspended animation.”

“Just hold your… er,” said Norton. “Just hold on a minute.” He looked at them all. “You’ve heard of John Wayne? The other John Wayne? And you’ve heard of the Alamo? You must have seen The Alamo , the movie. John Wayne was in it. I’m not that John Wayne. That was all invented. It didn’t happen. It was a film.”

“It didn’t happen?”

“No.” Norton paused. “Okay, it did happen. The film was based on history—”

“On history!”

“Yeah, a true historical event, but—”

“A true historical event!”

The trio were becoming very excited. One of them stood up; so did another.

“This is what we need. He’s a valuable resource.”

“Priceless.”

“We can’t afford to have him.”

“We can’t afford not to have him.”

“He could be ours.”

“He should be ours.”

“Yes, possibly, but that’s not why we’re all here.”

“Excuse me,” said Norton. “Could I be untied? Could I have a drink?”

“He wants a drink.”

“Maybe he wants to go to the saloon. ”

“For a glass of red-eye! ”

“I’ve never been to Texas,” said Norton. “I wasn’t at the Alamo. Neither was the other John Wayne. He was playing a part in a movie. He was acting the role of… er… Jim Bowie. No! He was Davy Crockett.”

“We know that.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Norton. “The battle of the Alamo, the real battle of the Alamo, okay, it occurred in the nineteenth century. Cryonic technology didn’t exist then. How many cowboys have been defrosted? I’ll tell you: none. Because I’m the oldest person ever to have been thawed out. Isn’t that right?”

That was what Brendan had told him, and it made sense.

Resurrection technology must have been brand new in 1968. Before he became an unwilling participant, Norton had been completely unaware of its existence.

And he certainly hadn’t seen it in a Western.

He imagined how it could have been: unable to dig a deadly bullet from one of the Earp brothers, Doc Holiday rushed the fatally wounded victim into the Dodge City suspended-animation chamber for the medics of the future to save his life.