Robert Heinlein - The Cat Who Walked Through Walls

"You hope," said the car.

"-so mat we will show up simply as a subsonic private plane on air-control radar, if there is any. None, that is, where we are."

"Optimist," the car sneered.

"Quit hitching. Have you spotted your squat?"

"Long since. If you'll quit yacking and give me permission, I'll take it."

"At will. Gay."

I said, "Hazel, I had counted on getting acquainted with my new daughter about now. Wyoming."

"Don't fret, dear; she will never know we were away. That's the way to handle it until a child is old enough to understand."

"She won't know, but I will. I'm disappointed. All right, let's table it."

The scene blinked again and we were on the ground. Cas said, "Please check to see that you aren't leaving anything behind." As we got out and stood clear. Gay Deceiver disappeared. I stared through the space she had occupied. My Uncle Jock's house was two hundred meters away.

"Hazel, what date did Dora say this is?"

"Tuesday July first, 2177."

"That's what I thought I had heard. But when I thought it over I decided that I must have been mistaken. I now see that she wasn't fooling: '77. Eleven years in the past. Sweetheart, that ratty old barn there is standing where we landed last Saturday, three days ago. You wheeled me from there toward the house in Ezra's wheelchair. Hon, that bam we're looking at was torn down years back; that's just its ghost. This is bad."

"Don't fret about it, Richard. In timejumping it feels that way, the first time you get involved with a loop."

"I've already lived through 2177! I don't like paradoxes."

"Richard, treat it just as you would any other place, any other time. No one else will notice the paradox, so ignore it yourself. The chance of being recognized when you are living paradoxically is zero for any era outside your own normal lifetime... but usually only one in a million even if you timejump close to home. You left this area quite young, did you not?"

"I was seventeen: 2150."

"So forget it. You can't be recognized."

"Uncle Jock will know me. I've been back to see him a number of times. Although not recently. Unless you count our quick visit three days ago."

"He won't remember our visit three days ago-"

"He won't, huh? Sure, he's a hundred and sixteen years old. Or will be eleven years from now. But he's not senile."

"You're right; he's certainly not senile. And Uncle Jock is used to time loops. As you have guessed by now, he's in the Corps and quite senior. In fact he's the major stationkeeper for North America in time line three. Last night's evacuation of THQ was made to this station. Didn't you realize that?"

"Hazel, I didn't even touch second. Twenty minutes ago I was sitting in our stateroom-Dora was parked on the ground on Tertius, so I thought-and I was trying to decide whether to have another cup, or to take you back to bed. Since then I've been running as fast as I can to try to catch up with my own confusion. Unsuccessfully. I'm just an old soldier and harmless hack writer; I'm not used to such adventures. Well, let's go. I want you to meet my Aunt Cissy."

Gay had put us down across the road from Uncle Jock's place. We walked down the road a piece, me carrying packages and swinging my cane. Hazel with her handbag and carrying the kitten. Some years back Uncle Jock had placed a much stouter fence around his farm than was usual in Iowa in those days. It was not yet built when I left home and enlisted in 2150; it was in place by the time I visited in... 2161 ? That's about right.

The fence was heavy steel mesh, two meters high and with a six-strand cradle of barbed wire on top of that. I think the barbed wire was added later; I did not recall it.

Inside the cradle were copper wires on ceramic insulators. About every twenty meters there was a sign:

DANGER!!! Do Not Touch Fence Without Opening Master Switch #12

At the gate was another sign, larger: INTERBUREAU LIAISON AGENCY Bio-Ecological Research Division District Office Deliver Radioactive Materials To Gate Four-Wedns. Only 7-D-92-10-3sc YOUR TAXES AT WORK

Hazel said thoughtfully, "Richard, it does not look as if Uncle Jock lives here this year. Or this is the wrong house and Gay missed her clues. I may have to call for help."

"It's the right house and Uncle Jock did-does-live here this year. If this year is 2177, on which I'm keeping an open mind. That sign smells like Uncle Jock; he always did have funny ideas about privacy. One year it was piranhas and a moat."

I found a push button to the right of the gate and pressed it. A brassy voice, so artificial that it had to be an actor, announced: "Stand one-half meter from pickup. Display your clock badge. Face pickup. Turn ninety degrees and show profile. These premises are guarded by attack dogs, gas, and snipers."

"Is Jock Campbell at home?"

"Identify yourself."

"This is his nephew Colin Campbell. Tell him her father found out!"

The brassy voice was replaced by one I recognized. "Dickie, are you in trouble again?"

"No, Uncle Jock. I simply want to get in. I thought you were expecting me."

"Anyone with you?"

"My wife."

"What's her first name?"

"Go to hell."

"Later, don't rush me. I need her first name." "And I won't play games; we're leaving. If you see Lazarus Long-or Dr. Hubert-tell him that I'm sick of childish games and won't play. Good-bye, Uncle."

"Hold it! Don't move; I have you in my sights." I turned away without answering and said to Hazel, "Let's start walking, hon. Town is a far piece down the road but somebody will come along and give us a lift. People around here are friendly."

"I can phone for help. The way I did from the Raffles " She lifted her handbag.

"Can you? Wouldn't the call be relayed right back to this house no matter where or when or what time line? Or have I failed to understand any of it? Let's start hoofing it. My turn to carry that fierce cat."

"All right."

Hazel did not seem to be troubled over our failure to get into Uncle Jock's place, or Time Headquarters, whichever As for me, I was happy, light-hearted. I had a beautiful, lovable bnde. I was no longer a cripple and I felt years younger than my calendar age. If I still had a calendar age. The weather was heavenly in a fashion that only Iowa knows. Oh, it would be hot later in the day (it takes hot sun to grow good corn) but now, at about ten-fifteen, it was still balmy; by the time it was really hot I would have my bride-and the kitten-indoors. Even if we had to stop at the next farmhouse. Let's see... the Tanguays? Or had the old man sold out by 2177? No matter

I was not worried by my lack of local legal money, my lack of tangible assets of any sort. A beautiful summer day in Iowa leaves no room for worry. I could work and would-spreading manure if that was the sort of work available. And I would soon spread manure of another sort, moonlighting nights and Sundays. In 2177 Evelyn Fingerhut had not yet retired, so pick some new pen names and sell him the same old tripe. The same stories-just file off the serial numbers.

File off the serial numbers, change the body lines a bit. give it a new paint job, switch it over the state line, and it's yours!- that's the secret of literary success. Editors always claim to be looking for new stories but they don't buy them; they buy "mixture as before." Because the cash customers want to be entertained, not amazed, not instructed, not frightened.

If people truly wanted novelty, baseball would have died out two centuries back... instead of being ever popular. What can possibly happen in a baseball game that everyone has not seen many times before? Yet people like to watch baseball- shucks, I'd enjoy seeing a baseball game right now, with hot dogs and beer.

"Hazel, do you enjoy baseball?"

"Never had a chance to find out. When the drugs against acceleration came along, I went dirtside for my law degree but never had time to watch baseball even in the idiot box. I worked my way through law school and was I busy! That was when I was Sadie Lipschitz."