Rovert Silverberg - Up The Line

“But — impossible—”

“I know the way.”

“Do you?”

“I swear it,” I said.

She needed some convincing, but at length I persuaded her to spare herself the risk of getting me out of the palace. We kissed once more, and she donned her wrap, and I caught her by the arm and pulled her to me, and released her, and she went out of the room. I counted sixty seconds off. Then I set my timer and jumped six hours up the line. The party was going full blast. Casually I walked through the building, avoiding the room where my slightly earlier self, not yet admitted to Pulcheria’s joyous body, was chatting with Emperor Alexius. I left the Ducas palace unnoticed. In the darkness outside, beside the sea wall along the Golden Horn, I set my timer again and shunted down the line to 1204. Now I hurried to the inn where I had left my sleeping tourists. I reached it less than three minutes after my departure — seemingly so many days ago — for Pulcheria’s era.

All well. I had had my incandescent night of passion, my soul was purged of longings, and here I was, back at my trade once more, and no one the wiser. I checked the beds.

Mr. and Mrs. Haggins, yes.

Mr. and Mrs. Gostaman, yes.

Miss Pistil and Bilbo, yes

Palmyra Gostaman, yes.

Conrad Sauerabend, yes? No.

Conrad Sauerabend—

No Sauerabend. Sauerabend was missing. His bed was empty. In those three minutes of my absence, Sauerabend had slipped away.

Where?

I felt the early pricklings of panic.

Calm. Calm. Stay calm. He went out to the pissoir , is all. He’ll be right back.

Item One, a Courier must remain aware of the location of all of the tourists in his care at all times. The penalty —

I kindled a torch at the smoldering hearth and rushed out into the hall.

Sauerabend? Sauerabend?

Not pissing. Not downstairs rummaging in the kitchen. Not prowling in the wine cellar.

Sauerabend?

Where the devil are you, you pig?

The taste of Pulcheria’s lips was still on my own. Her sweat mingled with mine. Her juices still crisped my short hairs. All the delicious forbidden joys of transtemporal incest continued to tingle in my soul.

The Time Patrol will make a nonperson out of me for this, I thought. I’ll say, “I’ve lost a tourist,” and they’ll say, “How did it happen?” and I’ll say, “I stepped out of the room for three minutes and he vanished,” and they’ll say, “Three minutes, eh? You aren’t supposed to—” and I’ll say, “It was only three minutes . Christ, you can’t expect me to watch them twenty-four hours a day!” And they’ll be sympathetic, but nevertheless they’ll have to check the scene, and in the replay they’ll discover me wantonly shunting out for some other point on the line, and they’ll track me to 1105 and find me with Pulcheria, and see that not only am I guilty of negligence as a Courier, but also that I’ve committed incest with my great-great-multi-great—

Calm. Calm.

Into the street now. Flash the torch around. Sauerabend? Sauerabend? No Sauerabend.

If I were a Sauerabend, where would I sneak off to?

To the home of some twelve-year-old Byzantine girl? How would he know where to find one? How to get in? No. No. He couldn’t have done that. Where is he, though? Strolling through the town? Out for fresh air? He should be asleep. Snoring. No. I realized that when I left he hadn’t been asleep, hadn’t been snoring; he’d been bothering Palmyra Gostaman. I hurried back to the inn. There wasn’t any point in roaming Constantinople at random for him.

In mounting panic I woke up Palmyra. She rubbed her eyes, complained a little, blinked. Torchlight glittered off her flat bare chest.

“Where did Sauerabend go?” I whispered harshly.

“I told him to leave me alone. I told him if he didn’t stop bothering me I’d bite his thing off. He had his hand right here, and he—”

“Yes, but where did he go ?”

“I don’t know. He just got up and went away. It was dark in here. I fell asleep maybe two minutes ago. Why’d you have to wake me up?”

“Some help you are,” I muttered. “Go back to sleep.”

Calm, Judson, calm. There’s an easy solution to this. If you weren’t in such a flutter, you’d have thought about it long ago. All you have to do is edit Sauerabend back into the room, the way you edited Marge Hefferin back to life.

It’s illegal, of course. Couriers are not supposed to engage in time corrections. That’s for the Patrol to do. But this will be such a small correction. You can handle it quickly and no one will be the wiser. You got away with the Hefferin revision, didn’t you? Yes. Yes. It’s your only chance, Jud.

I sat down on the edge of my bed and tried to plan my actions properly. My night with Pulcheria had dulled the edge of my intellect. Think, Jud. Think as you never thought before.

I put great effort into my thinking.

What time was it when you shunted up to 1105?

Fourteen minutes to midnight .

What time was it when you came back down the line to 1204?

Eleven minutes to midnight.

What time is it now?

One minute to midnight .

When did Sauerabend slip out of the room, then?

Somewhere between fourteen to and eleven to .

Therefore, how far up the line must you shunt to intercept him?

About thirteen minutes .

You realize that if you jump back more than thirteen minutes, you’ll encounter your prior self, who will be getting ready to depart for 1105? That’s the Paradox of Duplication.

I’ve got to risk it. I’m in worse trouble than that already .

You’d better shunt, then, and get things fixed up.

Here I go .

I timed my shunt perfectly, going up the line thirteen minutes less a few seconds. I noticed with satisfaction that my earlier self had already departed, and that Sauerabend had not. The ugly fat bastard was still in the room, sitting up in his bed with his back to me.

It would be simplicity itself to stop him now. I simply forbid him to leave the room, and keep him here for the next three minutes, thus canceling his departure. The instant my prior self gets back — at eleven minutes to midnight — I shunt ten minutes down the line, resuming my proper place in the stream of time. Sauerabend thus will have been continuously guarded by his Courier (in one incarnation or another) throughout the whole dangerous period from fourteen minutes to midnight onward. There will be a very slight moment of duplication for me when I overlap my returning self, but I’ll clear out of his time level so fast that he probably won’t notice. And all will be as it should have been.

Yes. Very good.

I started across the room toward Sauerabend, meaning to block his path when he tried to leave. He pivoted, still sitting on his bed, and saw me.

“You’re back?” he said.

“You bet. And I don’t—”

He put his hand to his timer and vanished.

“Wait!” I yelled, waking everybody up. “You can’t do that! It’s impossible! A tourist’s timer doesn’t—”

My voice trailed away into a foolish-sounding gargle. Sauerabend was gone, time-shunting before my eyes. Yelling at the place where he had been wouldn’t bring him back. The wiliness of the loathsome slob! Fooling with his timer, boasting that he could gimmick it into working for him, somehow shorting the seal and getting access to the control—

Now I was in a terrible mess of messes. One of my own tourists on the loose with an activated timer, jumping all over anywhen — what a monstrous botch! I was desperate. The Time Patrol was bound to pick him up, of course, before he could commit too many serious timecrimes, but beyond any doubt I’d be censured for letting him get away.