Robert Heinlein - The Cat Who Walked Through Walls

Star may not be the most beautiful woman in all her many universes but she may be the sexiest-in a sultry. Girl Scout fashion. Just walking through a room she is in should change a boy into a man.

"Woodrow Wilson Smith, Senior of the Howard Families, time line two, code 'Leslie LeCroix.'" Lazarus and I again exchanged nods.

"Dr. Jubal Harshaw, time line three, code 'Neil Ann-strong.'"

Dr. Harshaw raised his hand in a half salute and smiled; I answered the same way-and made a note to buttonhole him, back in Boondock perhaps, about the many legends of the "Man from Mars." How much was truth, how much was fiction?

"Dr. Hilda Mac Burroughs, time line four, code 'Ballox O'Malley.'" Hilda and I exchanged smiles.

"Commander Ted Smith, time line five, code 'DuQuesne.'" Commander Smith was a square-jawed athlete with ice-blue eyes. He was dressed in an undecorated gray uniform, carrying a bolstered hand gun, and wearing a bejeweled heavy bracelet.

"Captain John Sterling, time line six, code "Neil Armstrong alternate time line.'" I looked at my boyhood hero and considered the possibility that I was asleep and having a vivid dream. Hazel had told me and told me again that the hero of her space opera was real... but not even the repeated use of the code phrase "Operation Galactic Overlord" had convinced me... and now here he was: the foe of the Overlord.

Or was it he? What proof?

"Sky Marshal Samuel Beaux, time line seven, code 'Fair-acre.'" Marshal Beaux was over two meters tall, massed at least a hundred and ten kilos, all of it muscle and rhinoceros hide. He was dressed in a midnight black uniform and a frown, and was as beautiful as a black panther. He stared at me with jungle eyes.

Lazarus announced, "I declare quorum. The Circle is closed. Dr. Hilda Burroughs now speaks for the Circle."

Hilda smiled at me and said, "Colonel Campbell, I have been conscripted to explain to you our purposes and enough of our methods to enable you to see how the job you are being asked to do fits into the master plan, and why it must be done. Don't hesitate to interrupt, or to argue, or to demand more details. We can continue this discussion from now until lunch-time. Or for the next ten years. Or for a truly long time. As long as necessary."

Sky Marshal Beaux cut in with: "Speak for yourself, Mrs.

Burroughs. I'm leaving in thirty minutes."

Hilda said, "Sambo, you really should address the chair. I can't let you leave until you speak your piece, but, if you need to leave, you can speak now. Please explain what you do and why."

"Why is this man being coddled? I've never been asked to explain my duties to a raw recruit before. This is ridiculous."

"Nevertheless I ask you to do so." The sky marshal settled back in his chair and said nothing. Lazarus said, "Sambo, I know this is without precedent but all the Companions including the three who are not here have agreed that Task Adam Selene is essential to Operation Galactic Overlord, that Overlord is essential to Campaign Boskone, that Boskone is essential to our Plan Long View... and that Colonel Campbell is essential to Task Adam Selene. The Circle is closed on this, no dissent. We need Campbell's services, given fully and freely. So we must persuade him. You need not go first ... but, if you expect to be excused from the Circle in thirty minutes, you had better speak up." "And if I don't choose to?" "Your problem. You are free to resign; all of us are, anytime. And the Circle is free to terminate you."

"Are you threatening me?"

"No." Lazarus glanced at his wrist. "You've stalled for four minutes against the unanimous decision of the Circle. If you expect to comply with the Circle's decision, you are running out of minutes."

"Oh, very well. Campbell, I am commanding officer of the armed forces of the Time Corps-"

"Correction," Lazarus Long interrupted. "Sky Marshal Beaux is the chief of staff of-"

"It's the same thing!"

"It is not the same thing and I knew exactly what I was doing when I set it up that way. Colonel Campbell, the Time Corps sometimes intervenes in key battles in history. Histories. The Corps' board of historians seeks to identify cusps where judicious use of force might change history in fashions that we believe, in our limited wisdom, would be better for the human race-and this policy strongly affects and is affected by Task Adam Selene, I must add. If the Circle closes on a recommendation by the historians, military action is mounted, and a commander in chief for that operation is selected by the Circle."

Lazarus turned and looked directly at Beaux. "Sky Marshal Beaux is a highly skilled military commander, perhaps the best in all history. He is usually selected to command. But the Circle picks the commander of each task force. This policy keeps ultimate power out of the hands of military commanders. I must add that the Chief of Staff is an auditor without a vote; he is not a Companion of this Circle. Sambo, do you have anything to add?"

"You seem to have made my speech."

"Because you were stalling. You are free to correct, amend, and elaborate."

"Oh, never mind. You should give elocution lessons."

"Do you now wish to be excused?"

"Are you telling me to leave?"

"No."

"I'll hang around awhile as I want to see what you do with this joker. Why didn't you simply conscript him and assign him to Task Selene? He's an obvious criminal type; look at his skull, note his attitude toward authority. On my home planet we never use anything as sloppy and unreliable as volunteers ... and we don't have a criminal class because we draft them into the forces as fast as they show their heads. There are no better fighters than the criminal type if you catch 'em young, rule them with iron discipline, and keep them more scared of their sergeants than they can possibly be of the enemy."

"That will do. Sambo. Please refrain from expressing opinion uninvited."

"I thought you were the great champion of free speech?"

"I am. But there is no free lunch. If you want to make a speech, you can hire your own hall; this one is paid for by the Circle. Hilda. Speak up, dear."

"Very well. Richard, most interventions recommended by our historians and mathematicians are not brute force, but actions far more subtle, carried out by individual field operatives ... such as your gal Hazel, who is a real fox when it comes to robbing a henhouse. You know what we are trying to do in Task Adam Selene; you don't know what it is for, I believe. Our methods of prognosticating the results of a change introduced into history are less than perfect. Whether it's digging in on one side in a key battle, or something as simple as supplying a high school student with a condom some midnight and thereby avoiding the birth of a Hitler or a Napoleon, we can never predict the results as well as we need to. Usually we have to do it, then send a field operative down that new time line to report the changes."

"Hilda," said Lazarus, "may I offer a horrible example?" "Certainly, Woodie. But make it march. I plan to finish before lunch."

"Colonel Campbell, I come from a world identical with yours to about 1939. Divergence, as usual, showed most at the start of space flight. Both your world and mine showed a tendency toward religious hysteria. In mine it peaked with a television evangelist named Nehemiah Scudder. His brand of fire and brimstone and scapegoatism-Jews of course; no novelty-peaked at a time when unemployment also peaked and public debt and inflation got out of hand; the result was a religious dictatorship, a totalitarian government as brutal as my world has ever seen.

"So this Circle set up an operation to get rid of Nehemiah Scudder. Nothing as crass as assassination; the specific method Hilda mentioned was used. A high school boy without a rubber was provided with one by a field operative, and the little bastard who became Nehemiah Scudder was never bom. So time line two-mine-was split and time line eleven was created, allee samee but without Nehemiah Scudder, the Prophet. Bound to be better, right?