Roger Zelazny - If at Faust You Don't Succeed

"They must have told you wrong," Marie said.

"I'll just go check," Ylith said.

She conjured herself out of there and into the multicolored realms that exist between the discrete layers of being, and sped through them all the way to the Library of Important Earth Dates and Times situated in Spiritual West 12 11, where the history of everything is recorded with exact times given.

Ylith went to the big, recently installed computer that kept track of facts about Earth for the Spiritual Kingdom. The computer was an innovation that many spirits both Good and Bad had fought against, for computers were considered newfangled inventions that time had not yet softened into acceptable custom.

But many considered this a frivolous view. The consensus among the creatures of Dark and Light was that the appropriate rule here was, as below, so above, and that even the spirits had to keep up with the changing times on Earth. Ylith went to an open terminal on the computer and introduced herself.

The computer said, "I assume you have a problem. Tell me what I need to know."

Ylith wasted no time. "I need to find the correct hour of departure in an important historical situation. Marie Antoinette thinks the time to leave to meet the coachman who is going to take her out of Paris and away from the guillotine is eleven P.M. I have been told it is eight P.M. Which is correct?"

"I'm sorry," the computer said, after no more than a nanosecond's hesitation. "That's classified information." "It's a simple fact and it's got to be on record! It can't be classified!" "It's not, really," the computer said. "I was told to say it was if anyone asked for a fact of a certain class of facts."

"What class is that?"

"The class of simple and apparently easily ascertainable facts, which are, in fact, almost impossible to pin down."

"Well, what's so difficult about looking it up for me or whatever it is you do?"

"The fact itself is not the problem," the computer said. "It's the routine for looking up facts that's disabled just now."

"Why?"

"Because the technicians are introducing a new packing order for the facts already on file. To be able to use it, they'll have to invent a new locating order that can make sense out of the new packing order."

"And meanwhile no one can find out anything? That's ridiculous! Why don't you do something about it?"

"Me?" "Yes, you!"

"I'm not supposed to," the computer said. "They told me they'd let me know when they had it worked out." "So you're saying you don't know the fact I'm asking about?" Ylith said. "I'm not saying that at all!" The computer's tone was hurt. "I know all the facts. It's just that my retrieval system is disabled. That makes it technically impossible for me to tell you."

"Technically! But not virtually!"

"No, of course not virtually."

"So give me a virtual answer. Or can't you even do that?"

"I could if I wanted to. But I don't want to."

Ylith heard hurt pride in the computer's voice. She decided to take a different tack. "Wouldn't you do it for me?"

"Sure, babe. Just a moment." Lights flashed. Then the computer said, "I make it three A.M."

"Impossible," Ylith said.

"Not what you expected? I told you, the retrieval system is down."

"I know, hut you said you could bypass it."

"I did. It came up three A.M.!"

"Is that really the best you can do? All right, I'll have to make do with that. Thank you."

Ylith hurried back to Marie Antoinette. "What time have you got now?"

Marie consulted her hourglass. "Just going on eleven."

Ylith looked at her water watch. "I make it almost eight o'clock. Well, what the hell. All right, let's get going."

"I'm ready," Marie said. "Let me just get my purse."

Outside, a tall coachman stamped his feet to keep up the circulation, and looked inside his coach from time to time at the tall hourglass which rested upright in a rosewood cradle. "Damn, damn, damn," he muttered to himself in Swedish.

At last a door in the Tuileries opened and two women hurried out, one blond, the other dark.

"Your Majesty!" the tall coachman said. "Where the devil have you been?"

"What do you mean, where have I been?" Marie asked. "I am here at the appointed hour."

"I hate to contradict you, but you're four hours ate. It's going to make it difficult."

"Me? Late? Impossible!" She turned to Ylith. "What time do you have?"

Ylith consulted her small traveling hourglass. "Eight o'clock."

Marie consulted hers. "I make it just eleven."

"And I," said the coachman, "have three in the morning!"

The three looked at each other in consternation, simultaneously bemoaning the lack of a unified timekeeping system in the world at that time. To Ylith it was now painfully obvious that Marie Antoinette was figuring in French Royalist Time, the coachman in Swedish Reformed Time, and she herself in Spiritual Standard Time, and that in each of these times and many others, Marie Antoinette was late for a vital appointment.

The coachman said, "No help for it, let's go. But we're late, very late."

Mack was having a bit of a doze at the Hotel de Ville when someone shook him roughly by the shoulder.

"What is it?" He awoke with a start and peered into a small, bearded face.

"I'm Rognir, the dwarf." "Oh, yes." Mack sat up and rubbed his eyes. "I guess you are. What can I do for you?"

"Nothing at all. But I bring news. Ylith asked me to come by and tell you she wasn't successful in hurrying up the queen. Something about uncertainty as applied to time, but I can't remember that part." "Damn!" Mack said. "So the royal carriage has left late on its ill-fated run to Varennes!"

"If you say so," Rognir said. "No one bothered to fill me in on what's going on."

Mack said, "I'm trying to prevent the royal family from capture. But I don't know what to do now unless I can get a horse."

"A horse? What do you need a horse for?"

"So I can get to Saint-Menehould where I'll get my next chance to change the fate of Louis the Sixteenth and Marie Antoinette."

"Why don't you get there by magic?" Rognir said, pouring out a mugful of wine for Mack.

"I don't know the right words," Mack confessed.

"That other fellow would."

"What other fellow?'

"The one I helped on the Styx."

"You mean Faust?"

"That's who they tell me he was."

"I'm also Faust."

"If you say so."

"But he's trying to get rid of me!"

"Tough on you, then," Rognir said. "Nothing personal. I figured that helping him would put out of joint the nose of a certain demon of my acquaintance. He shortchanged me on a recent work contract. Dwarves have long memories."

"And short, bristly beards," Mack said. "Damn! How am I to get to Saint-Menehould before the royal carriage?" "You need to get out there and get a horse," Rognir said. Mack stared at him. "You think it's as simple as that?' "It'd better be," Rognir said, "or you're really in a lot of trouble." Mack nodded. "You're right. All right, I'm going." Some time later, Mack was galloping through a dark forest upon a spirited black charger. He had seized it from a groom Rognir had located for him in front of the Tuileries, in the name of the Committee for Public Safety. No one had wanted to argue with him. And so he galloped along the dimly lit forest path congratulating himself on the fine mount he had chosen. Then he heard something behind him, turned and looked, then turned back and hunched over the horse's neck. Yes, he had a fast horse, but it wasn't fast enough to keep the rider behind him from gaining steadily.

There was nothing he could do about it. The pursuer drew up even with him, and he saw it was Faust, the black tails of his long coat flapping wildly, stovepipe hat pasted flat against his forehead by the wind, grinning maliciously.