Joe Haldeman - The Accidental Time Machine

“I didn’t know anybody with that kind of money. But the lawyer said someone who looked somewhat like me had showed up at his office and given it to him, with instructions to come down to the courthouse and buy my way out.”

“So it was you, coming back from the future to save yourself.”

“It’s an explanation. But it requires backward time travel, which is supposed to be impossible.”

“That doesn’t sound very scientific, for a scientist. I’d say that the fact that you showed up with the money proves that backward time travel is possible—and it’s possible for you .” She stood up, excited. “And if you looked like you, now, we know it’s not going to take fifty years or something to find out the secret!”

“Or maybe it will take fifty years,” Matt said sardonically, “or a hundred, but traveling backward makes you look younger.” Her smile evaporated. “I’m kidding . Your logic is good. With that and your faith, how can we lose?”

“Thank you.” She dimpled again. “Are you hungry?”

“Starving. We should get something to eat, then rest. Sounds like a busy day tomorrow.” He looked around. “Mister Food Man?”

The valet appeared. “What may I do for you?”

“Can you do pizza?”

“Of course. New York or Chicago style?”

“New York. With pepperoni.”

He nodded and disappeared. “ ‘Piece of’?” Martha said. “Piece of what?”

“Pizza, with two zees. It’s from Italy.”

“It’s very good?”

“Oh, yeah.” Better than sex, he didn’t say, and at least I can introduce you to it in good conscience.

In the middle of a sound sleep, Matt suddenly woke up. An unusually vivid dream.

Still there. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. It wouldn’t go away.

Why would he dream of Jesus?

He didn’t look like the Cambridge manifestation. Quieter, calming. He held one finger to his lips. Quiet. Don’t say anything. Don’t react.

Matt nodded microscopically.

I’m not even on your retina. This is a direct stimulation of the visual cortex and the parts of your brain that interpret hearing.

You need this woman, this machine, La. But never trust her. Remember, she cannot die. Think of how that makes her feel toward you. Think of what she might do to you.

Don’t say anything to Martha. She will see me, too. That’s why I have taken this appearance. You are both having the same dream — which is not a dream. But it’s the only way I can talk to you without La knowing.

La sees everything you do and say. Be careful. She could leave you behind. She has no need for the backward time machine.

I will find you in whatever time and space. Never let La know I am available.

He was gone. “Whatever time and space?” What was he? Not the actual Jesus. If there was an actual one.

Matt lay awake for twenty or thirty minutes. Then he felt in the dark for the robe hanging on the door, put it on, and went into the sitting room to get a glass of wine. Just before he turned on the light, he knew he wasn’t alone.

“Matt?”

“Martha.” He stepped past her and touched the bottle of white wine. It was still cold, automatically refrigerated somehow. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“Me … me neither.”

“Care for some wine?”

“No, not really.”

He poured himself half a glass and looked into her face, one look, then away. He’d never seen such intensity. Faith or fear or confusion, whatever.

“Disturbing dreams?”

“Not disturbing. Strong, but not disturbing.”

“Me, too. Understandable. A lot’s happened in the past twenty-four hours.”

She was wearing the same kind of robe. She gathered it around herself and tied the sash belt tightly. Not changing expression: “People can sleep together without adultery? I mean, without being together to make children. Does it have to happen?”

“No. Not unless … no.”

She took a deep breath and exhaled. “I’ve never slept alone, and I’m a little afraid. If I could sleep with you, I would be grateful.”

“Sure. I understand.”

“I could just take some covers into the corner, like in Cambridge. ”

“Absolutely not. It’s a big bed. You can have half.”

She nodded with her eyes closed. “Mine was too big for one. I was kind of lost without a bunch of sisters or students sharing it.”

“Come on. Let’s get some rest.” She touched his hand and smiled and preceded him into the bedroom. He turned off the light and got in next to her, carefully not touching. He heard her shrug out of the robe.

“Thank you, Matt. Good night.”

“Night.” He didn’t sleep for a while himself, resisting the magnet pull of her weight on the other side of the bed. Her womanly smell, the soft sigh of her breathing.

He had vivid dreams that did not involve Jesus.

It was a hearty breakfast. Matt and Martha helped themselves to traditional fare, eggs and bacon and pancakes. La had a bowl of clear soup, just to be sociable.

“So what about our interrogators?” Matt asked. “Are they here yet?”

“In a sense. Only one of them is flesh and blood. The others are like me, projections. Most of them reside in orbit. So they’re as ‘here’ as they ever will be.”

Martha had only nibbled at a little pancake and egg. “You should eat more, dear,” La said. “The interview will take several hours; you’ll be famished.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s not reasonable, I know, but the word ‘interview’ frightens me.”

“Just people asking you questions,” Matt said helpfully.

She stared at her plate and pushed food around. “We have confession once a week. You tell a Father what you’ve done the past week that was wrong.”

“And he punishes you?”

“No, not normally. He makes sure you understand what you did, and if someone was hurt by it, tells you how to make that right.

“But if the sin is bad enough, you go for an interview downtown, at Trinity Church. Nobody is allowed to say what happens there. But I’ve seen people come back missing fingers or, once, a hand. Four or five years ago a man did something with his dog. They hanged the dog, then cut the man apart and burned his insides in front of him, while he was still alive. They kept him alive as long as they could, with medicine, while he watched, and they cut off his eyelids so he couldn’t close his eyes.”

“Shit. They made you watch that?”

“No, my mother wouldn’t let me go. But they left his body hanging on a stick for a year, downtown, along with the dog.”

Matt broke the silence. “We have a saying. ‘Yours is a world well lost.’ ”

“Was that Shakespeare?”

“Dryden,” La said, “1688. Shakespeare had been dead fifty-two years.”

“Most of my world isn’t that bad. But the interview was about the worst part.”

“Nobody will judge either of you in this one. Set your mind at ease. They just want to find out how you lived, what your world was like. Nobody will hurt you.”

“A lot to do in two or three hours,” Matt said.

La agreed. “It amazes me.”

Two valets led them downstairs and into separate rooms for the interviews.

In Matt’s room there was a comfortable-looking lounge chair beside a shoulder-high black box. It made mechanical noises while he obeyed the valet’s request to strip down and lie quietly.

A helmet slid over his head, and he felt it prick him dozens of places, not painfully. Then a wire net settled over his body, from clavicle to ankles, and stretched tight. Part of him knew he should be resisting.

He was maybe eighteen months old, crawling. Adults talked above him, but it was just pleasant noise, without meaning. Then someone shook him and yelled at him and laid him down on a blanket and roughly changed his diaper.