Robert Heinlein - The Cat Who Walked Through Walls

Harshaw said, "There are no coincidences. One respect in which World as Myth is far simpler than earlier teleology is the simple fact that there are no accidents, no coincidences."

Uncle Jock said, "Jubal? I don't have the authority." "And I do. Yes." He stood up. "Both of us, I think." My uncle stood up, too. "Dickie boy, you wait right here; we'll be gone five minutes or so. Errand to do."

As they left, Davis stood up, "Excuse, please? Need change arm."

"Sure, Papa Mannie. No, no. Pixel! Beer is not for baby cats."

They were gone seven minutes by my Sonychron. But not, quite apparently, by their time. Uncle had grown a full beard. Harshaw had a new, pink knife scar across his left cheek. I looked at them. "Ghosts of Christmas past! What happened?"

"Everything. Is there any beer left there? Cissy," he said, not raising his voice, "could we have some beer? And Jubal and I have not eaten in some time. Hours. Days, maybe."

"Right away," Aunt Cissy's disembodied voice answered. "Dear? I think you ought to take a nap."

"Later."

"Just as soon as you have eaten. Forty minutes."

"Quit nagging me. Could I have tomato soup? For Jubal, too."

"I'll fetch soup and more of your picnic. Forty-five minutes until your nap; that's official. Til says so."

"Remind me to beat you."

"Yes, dear. But not today; you're exhausted."

"Very well." Uncle Jock turned to me. "Let's see, what'U you have first? Those rolligons? Your friend Hendrik Schultz handled that one; you can be sure it's thorough. He has turned out to be an ichiban field investigator. You can forget paranoia on that one, Dickie-two opponents, the Time Lords and the Scene Changers... and both of them after you as well as each other. You have a charmed life, son-bom to be hanged."

"What do you mean?-Time Lords and Scene Changers? And why me?"

"May not be their own names for themselves. The Lords and the Changers are groups doing the sort of thing the Circle does... but we don't see eye to eye with them. Dickie, you don't think that in all the universes to the Number of the Beast or more, we of the Circle would be the only ones to catch on to the truth and attempt to do something about it, do you?"

"I don't know anything about it, one way or another."

"Colonel," put in Dr. Harshaw, "a major shortcoming of World as Myth lies in the fact that we contend with... and often lose to... three sorts of antagonists: villains by design such as the Galactic Oveiiord, and groups like us but with different intentions-bad in our opinion, perhaps good in theirs-and the third and most powerful, the myth makers themselves-such as Homer and Twain and Shakespeare and Baum and Swift and their colleagues in the pantheon. But not those I have named. Their bodies have died; they live on by the immortal corpus of myth each has created... which does not change and therefore does not imperil us.

"But there are living myth makers, every one of them dangerous, every one of them casually uncaring as he revises a myth and erases a character." Harshaw smiled grimly. "The only way one can live with the knowledge is to realize first that it is the only game in town and second that it does not hurt. Erasure. Being X'd out of the story."

"How do you know that it doesn't hurt?"

"Because I refuse to entertain any other theory! Shall we get on with our report?"

"Dickie boy, you asked, 'Why me?' For the same reason Jubal and I left a pleasant lunch to work our tails off and to set many others to arduous and dangerous investigation in several time lines. Because of Task Adam Selene and your key part in it. Near as we can tell, the Time Lords want to kidnap Mike while the Scene Changers want to destroy him. But both groups want you dead; you're a menace to their plans."

"But at that time I had not even heard of Mike the Computer."

"Best time to kill you, wouldn't you say? Cissy, you are not only beautiful, you are pleasant to have around. Besides your hidden talents. Just put it down; we'll serve ourselves."

"Blagueur et gros menteur. You still must nap. Message from Til. You are not to come to the dinner table until you shave off that beard."

'Tell that baggage that I will starve before I will be henpecked."

"Yes, sir. And I feel the same way she does about it."

"Peace, woman."

"So I volunteer to shave you. And to cut your hair."

"I accept."

"Right after your nap."

"Begone. Jubal, did you have any of this jellied salad? It is something Til does exceptionally well... although all three of my owners are fine cooks."

"Will you put that in writing?"

"I told you to disappear. Jubal, living with three women takes fortitude."

"I know. I did so, for many years. Fortitude plus angelic disposition. And a taste for lazy living. But a group marriage, such as our Long Family, combines the advantages of bachelorhood, monogamy, and polygamy, with the drawbacks of none."

"I won't argue it but I'll stick with my three Graces as long as they'll let me hang around. Now let's see- Enrico Schultz. No such character."

"So?" I answered. "He made some horrid stains on my tablecloth."

"So he had another name. But you knew that. Best hypothesis makes him a member of the same gang as your friend Bill... who was a smiling villain if one ever smiled, as well as a consummate actor. We call them The Revisionists. Motivation had to be Adam Selene. Not Walker Evans."

"Why did he mention Walker Evans?"

'To shake you up, maybe. Dickie, I didn't know about General Evans until you brought the matter up, since that debacle is still in my future. My normal future. I can see how it weighs on your mind. Will weigh on your mind. Remember, I didn't know that you had been invalided out of the Andorran Contract Crusaders until you told me.

"Anyhow- All of the 'Friends of Walker Evans' are dead except you and one who went to the Asteroids and can't be found. This is as of July tenth, 2188, eleven years forward. Unless you want to talk to any alive on some date not quite so forward."

"Can't see any reason to."

"So it seemed to us. Now Walker Evans himself. Lazarus handled this... and a spot of world-changing, partly to show you what can be done. No attempt was made to revise the battle. It would be difficult, in 2177, to revise a battle in 2178 without utterly changing your life. Either kill you that year, or not lose your leg and you stay in the service-yes, I now know about your leg although it's forward from here. Either way, you don't go to Golden Rule, you don't marry Hazel... and we aren't sitting here, talking about it. World-changing is touchy, Dickie-best done in homeopathic doses.

"Lazarus has two messages for you. He says that you should feel no personal guilt over that debacle. To do so would be as silly as a subordinate of Custer feeling guilty over Little Big Horn... to which he adds that Custer was a far more brilliant general than Evans ever was. Lazarus speaks as one who has held every rank from private to commander in chief, in experience spread over many centuries and seventeen wars.

"That's the first message. The second is this: Tell your nephew that, yes, it horrifies nice people. But it happens. Only those who go out beyond the end of street lights and of pavements know how such things can happen. He says that he is certain that Walker Evans would not hold it against you. Dickie, what's he talking about?"

"Had he wanted you to know, he would have told you." "Reasonable. Was General Evans a man of good taste?" "What?" I stared at my uncle-then answered reluctantly:

"Well, no, I would not say so. I found him tough and a bit stringy."

"Now we have it out in the open1-"

"Yes, damn you!" "-and I can tell you the rest, the world-changing. A field operative hid a couple of ration packs under the General's body. When you moved the body, you found them... and it was just enough that none of the Friends of Walker Evans ever reached that degree of hunger necessary to overcome the taboo. So it never happened."