Robert Heinlein - The Cat Who Walked Through Walls

Hazel did not give up her intention; she just changed her tactics. She decided to take me to Time Headquarters and let the high brass and the technical experts there answer my questions. "Darling man," she said to me, "you know that I want to rescue Adam Selene, and so does Mannie, my papa. But his reasons and mine are sentimental, not good enough to ask you to risk your life."

"Oh, say not so, mistress mine! For you I'll swim the Hellespont. On a calm day, that is, with an escort boat at my heels. And a three-dee contract. Commercial rights. Residuals."

"Be serious, dear. I had not planned to try to persuade you through explaining the greater purpose, the effect on the multiverse ... as I don't fully understand it myself. I don't have the math and I am not a Companion of the Circle-the Circle of Ouroboros that rules on all cosmic changes.

"But Lazarus bungled things by trying to hustle you. So I feel that you are entitled to know exactly why this rescue is necessary and why you are being asked to take part in it. We'll go to Headquarters and let them try to convince you; I wash my hands of that part of the job. It is up to the Companions, the high brass of time manipulation. I told Lazarus so-be is a Companion of the Circle."

"Sweetheart, I am much more likely to listen to you. Lazarus would have trouble selling me ten-crown notes for two crowns."

"His problem. But he has only one vote in the Circle, even though he is senior. Of course he is always senior, anywhere."

That caught my ear. "This notion that Lazarus is two thousand years old-"

"More than that. Over twenty-four hundred."

"Either way. Who says that he is more than two millennia old? He looks younger than I do."

"He's been rejuvenated several times."

"But who claims that he is that old? Forgive me, my love, but you can't testify to it. Even if we credit you with every fortnight you claim, he would still be more than ten times your age. If he is. Again, who says?"

"Uh... not me, that's true. But I have never had any reason to doubt it. I think you should talk to Justin Foote." Hazel looked around. We were in that lovely garden court outside the room in which I woke up. (Her room, I learned later-or hers when she wanted it; such things were fluid. Other times use other customs.) We were in that garden with other members of the Long family and guests and friends and relations, eating tasty tidbits and getting quietly slopped. Hazel picked out a mousy little man, the sort who is always elected treasurer of any organization he belongs to. "Justin! Over here, dear. Spare me a moment."

He worked his way toward us, stepping over children and dogs, and on arrival bussed my bride in the all-out fashion she always received. He said to her, "Fluttermouse, you've been away too long."

"Business, dear. Justin, this is my beloved husband Richard."

"Our house is yours." He kissed me. Well, I was braced for it; it had happened so often. These people kissed as often as early Christians. However, this was an aunt's peck, all protocol and bone dry.

"Thank you, sir."

"Please be assured that it is not our custom to put pressure on guests. Lazarus is a law unto himself but he does not act for the rest of us." Justin Foote smiled at me, then turned his attention to my bride. "Hazel, will you permit me to obtain from Athene a copy, for the Archives, of your remarks to Lazarus?"

"Whatever for? I chewed him out; it's done with." "It is of historical interest. No one else, not even Ishtar, has ever spanked the Senior as thoroughly as you did. There is scant disapproval of him on record, of any degree. Most people find it hard to disagree with him openly even when they disagree most. So it is not only an interesting item for future scholars, but it could also be of service to Lazarus himself if he ever scanned it. He is so used to getting his own way that it is good for him to be reminded now and then that he is not God." Justin smiled. "And it's a breath of fresh air for the rest of us. In addition. Hazel love, its literary quality is great and unique. I do want it for the Archives."

"Uh... poppycock, dear. See Lazarus. Nihil obstat but it requires his permission."

"Consider it done; I know how to use his stubborn pride. The piglet principle. All I have to do is to offer to censor it, keep it out of the Archives. With a hint that I wish to spare his feelings. He will then scowl and insist that it be placed in the Archives... unedited, unbowdlerized."

"Well- Okay if he says yes."

"May I ask, dear, where you picked up some of the more scabrous of those expressions?"

"You may not. Justin, Richard asked me a question I can't answer. How do we know that the Senior is more than two thousand years old? To me, it's like asking, 'How do I know that the Sun will rise tomorrow?' I just know it."

"No, it's like asking, 'How do you know that the Sun rose long before you were bom?' The answer is that you don't know.

Hmm- Interesting."

He blinked at me. "Part of the problem, I am sure, lies in the fact that you come from a universe in which the Howard Families phenomenon never took place."

"I don't think I've ever heard of it. What is it?" "It is a code name for people with exceptionally long lives.

But I must first lay a foundation. The Companions of the Circle of Ouroboros designate universes by serial numbers... but a more meaningful way, for terrestrials, is to ask who first set foot on Luna. Who in your world?"

"Eh? Chap named Neil Armstrong. With Colonel Buzz Ald-rin."

"Exactly. An enterprise of NASA, a government bureau, if I recall correctly. But in this universe, my world and that of Lazarus Long, the first trip to the Moon was financed, not by a government, but by private enterprise, headed by a financier, one D. D. Harriman, and the first man to set foot on Luna was Leslie LeCroix, an employee of Harriman. In still another universe it was a military project and the first flight to Luna was in the USAFS Kilroy Was Here. Another- Never mind; in every universe the birth of space travel is a cusp event, affecting everything that follows. Now about the Senior- In my universe he was one of the earliest space pilots. I was for many years archivist of the Howard Families... and from those archives I can show that Lazarus Long has been a practicing space pilot for more than twenty-four centuries. Would you find that convincing?"

"No."

Justin Foote nodded. "Reasonable. When a rational man hears something asserted that conflicts with all common sense he will not-and should not-believe it without compelling evidence. You have not been offered compelling evidence. Just hearsay. Respectable hearsay, and in fact true, but nevertheless hearsay. Odd. For me, I have grown up with it; I am the forty-fifth member of the Howard Families to bear the name 'Justin Foote,' the first of my name being a trustee of the Families in the early twentieth century Gregorian when Lazarus Long was a baby and Maureen was a young woman-"

At this point the conversation fell to pieces. The notion that the darling lady who had comforted me had a son twenty-four centuries old... but was herself a mere child of a century and a half- Hell, some days it doesn't pay to get out of bed, a truism in Iowa when I was young and still true in Tertius over two thousand years later. (If it was!) I had been perfectly happy with Minerva on one shoulder and Galahad on the other and Pixel on my chest. Aside from bladder pressure.

Maureen reminded me of another discrepancy. "Justin, something else frets me. You say that this planet is a long, long way in space and time from my home-over two thousand years in time and over seven thousand light-years in distance."

"No, I do not say it because I am not an astrophysicist. But that accords with what I have been taught, yes."

"Yet right here today I hear idiomatic English spoken in the dialect of my time and place. More than that, it is in the tall-corn accent of the North American middle west, harsh as a rusty saw. Ugly and unmistakable. Riddle me that?"