Robert Heinlein: Farnham's Freehold

Ponse caught Hugh's eye at this point. The old man was not laughing but his eyes twinkled. "Do it, Hugh," he said quietly. "That's a good fellow."

Hugh said to the Chosen scientist. "I will do it. I underc~t~ind "

The Chosen said, "May it please Their Charity, this one is ready to weigh them now, and then leave for the site."

"We've changed our mind," Ponse announced. "We will see this." He added, "Nerve in good shape, Hugh?"

"Quite."

"All of you who made the first jump were given this opportunity, did I tell you? Joe turned it down flatly." The old man glanced over his shoulder. "Grace! Changed your mind, little one?"

Grace looked up. "Ponsie!" she said reproachfully. "You know I would never leave you."

"Duke?"

The tempered servant did not even look up. He simply shook his head.

Ponse said to the scientist, "Let's hurry and get them weighed. We intend to sleep at home tonight."

The weighing was done elsewhere in the Palace. Just before the four were placed on the weighing area the Lord Protector held up the cartridge clip he had removed from the pistol Hugh now wore. "Hugh? Will you undertake not to be foolish with this? Or should I have the pellets separated from the explosives?"

"Uh, I'll behave."

"Ah, but how will you behave? If you were impetuous, you might succeed in killing me. But consider what would happen to Barba and our little brats."

(I had thought of that, you old scoundrel. I'll still do what seems best to me.) "Ponse, why don't you let Barbara carry the clip in a pocket? That would keep me from loading and firing very fast even if I did get ideas."

"A good plan. Here, Barba."

The boss scientist seemed unhappy at the total weight of his experimental package. "May it please Their Charity, this one finds that body weights of both adults must have lessened markedly since the time of the figures on which the calculations were made."

"Oh, nothing, nothing, may it please Their Charity. Just a slight delay. The mass must be exact." Hurriedly the Chosen started piling metal discs on the platform.

It gave Hugh an idea. "Ponse, you really expect this to work?"

"If I knew the answer, it would not be necessary to try it. I hope it will work."

"If it does work, we'll need money right away. Especially if I'm to travel half across the state to bury this clock device."

"Reasonable. You used gold, did you not? Or was it silver? I see your idea." The old man gestured. "Stop that weighing."

"We used both, sometimes, but it had to have our own protectorate's stamp. Ponse, there were quite a number of American silver dollars in my house when you took it away from me. Are they available?"

They were available and in the Palace and the old man had no objection to using them to make up the missing weight. The boss scientist was fretted over the delay-he explained to his lord that the adjustments were set for an exact time span as well as exact mass in order to place these specimens at a time before the East-West War had started, plus a margin for error-but that delay was reducing the margin and might require recalculation and long and painful recalibration. Hugh did not follow the technicalities.

Nor did Ponse. He cut the scientist off abruptly. "Then recalculate if necessary. All."

It took more than an hour to locate the man who could locate the man who knew where these particular items of the savage artifacts were filed, then dig them out and fetch them. Ponse sat brooding and playing with his mouse. Barbara nursed the twins, then changed them with the help of slut servants; Hugh petitioned plumbing calls for each of them-granted, under guard-and all this changed all the body weights and everything was started over again.

The silver dollars were still in, or had been replaced in, the $100 rolls in which Hugh had hoarded them. They made quite a stack, and (on the happy assumption that the time jump would work) Hugh was pleased that he had lost while imprisoned the considerable paunch he had regrown during his easy days as "Chief Researcher." However, less than three hundred silver dollars were used in bringing them up to calculated weight-plus a metal slug and some snips of foil.

"If it suits the Lord Protector, this one believes that the specimens should be placed in the container without delay."

"Then do it! Don't waste our time."

The container was floated in. It was a box, metallic, plain, empty, and with no furnishings of any sort, barely high enough for Hugh to stand upright in, barely large enough for all of them. Hugh got into it, helped Barbara in, the babies were handed to them and Hughie started to squawl and set off his brother.

Ponse looked annoyed. "My sluts have been spoiling those brats. Hugh, I've decided not to watch it, I'm weary. Goodbye to both of you-and good riddance; neither of you would ever have made a loyal servant. But I'll miss our bridge games. Barba, you must bring those brats back into line. But don't break their spunk doing it; they're fine boys." He turned and left abruptly.

The hatch was closed down on them and fastened; they were alone. Hugh at once took advantage of it to kiss his wife, somewhat hampered by each of them holding a baby.

"I don't care what happens now," Barbara said as soon as her mouth was free. "That's what I've been longing for. Oh, dear, Joey is wet again. How about Hughie?"

"It's unanimous, Hughie also. But I thought you just said you didn't care what happens now?"

"Well, I don't, really. But try explaining that to a baby. I would gladly swap one of those rolls of dollars for ten new diapers."

"My dear, do you realize that the human race lasted at least a million years with no diapers at all? Whereas we may not last another hour. So let's not spend it talking about diapers."

"I simply meant- Wups! They're moving us."

"Sit flat on the floor and brace your feet against the wall. Before we have scrambled babies. You were saying?"

"I simply meant, my darling, that I do not care about diapers, I don't care about anything-now that I have you with me again. But if we aren't going to die-if this thing works- I'm going to have to be practical. And do you know of anything more practical than diapers?"

"Yes. Kissing. Making love."

"Well, yes. But they lead to diapers. Darling, could you hold Hughie in your other arm and put this one around me? Uh, they're moving us again. Hugh, is this thing going to work? Or are we going to be very suddenly dead? Somehow I can imagine time travel frontwards-and anyhow we did it. But I can't imagine it backwards. I mean, the past has already happened. That's it. Isn't it?"

"Well, yes. But you haven't stated it correctly. The way I see it, there are no paradoxes in time travel, there can't be. If we are going to make this time jump, then we already did; that's what happened. And if it doesn't work, then it's because it didn't happen."

"But it hasn't happened yet. Therefore, you are saying that it didn't happen, so it can't happen. That's what I said."

"No, no! We don't know whether it has already happened or not. If it did, it will. If it didn't, it won't."

"Darling, you're confusing me."

"Don't worry about it. 'The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on'-and only then do you find out if it goosed you in passing. I think we've straightened out on a course; we're steady now, just the faintest vibration. If they are taking us where I think they are, James County I mean, then we've got at least an hour before we need worry about anything." He tightened his arm around her. "So let's be happy that hour."

She snuggled in. "That's what I was saying. Beloved, we've come through so many narrow squeaks together that I'm not ever going to worry again. If it's an hour, I'll be happy every second of it. If it's forty years, I'll be happy every second of that, too. If it's together. And if it's not together, I don't want it. But either way, we go on. To the end of our day."