Robert Silverberg - The Time Hoppers

“What good is it, if there’s no address on it?”

“I guess you’re supposed to follow it up,” Pomrath said. “Hunt around, do some detective work. I don’t know. Actually, I had forgotten all about it, to tell you the truth. Give it here.”

She surrendered it. He took it quickly, and thrust it into his pocket. Helaine did not like the speed with which he got the incriminating document out of sight. Although she hadn’t even a remote notion of its implications, she was easily able to detect her husband’s guilt and general embarrassment.

Maybe he’s planning a surprise for me, she thought. Maybe he’s already been to this Lanoy and done something about getting a job, but he was saving it to tell me next week when it’s our anniversary. And I bungled it by asking him questions. I should have let it go a while.

Her son Joseph, stark naked, stepped down from the platform of the molecular bath. His sister, equally naked, got under it. Helaine busied herself with programming breakfast. Joseph said, “We’re going to learn geography in school today.”

“How lovely,” Helaine said vaguely.

“Where’s Africa?” the boy asked.

“Far away. Across the ocean somewhere.”

“Can I go to Africa when I grow up?” Joseph persisted. There was a shrill giggle from the bath. Marina whirled around and said, “Africa’s where the Class Twos live! Are you going to be Class Two, Jo-Jo?”

The boy glowered at his sister. “Maybe. Maybe I’ll be Class One. How do you know? You won’t be anything. I got something you don’t have already.”

Marina made a face at him. All the same, she turned around to hide her undeveloped nine-year-old body from his beady eyes. From his corner of the room, Pomrath looked up from the morning faxtape and grunted, “Cut that out, both of you! Jo-Jo, get dressed! Marina, finish your bath!”

“I just said I wanted to go to Africa,” the boy muttered. “Don’t speak back to your father,” said Helaine. “Breakfast’s ready, anyhow. Get dressed.”

She sighed. Her head felt as though someone had poured powdered glass into it. The children always bickering. Norm sitting in the corner like a guest at his own wake, mysterious minislips popping up in the wash, four windowless walls hemming her in—no, it was too much. She didn’t understand how she could tolerate it. Eat, sleep, bathe, make love, all in one little room. Thousands of grubby neighbours mired in the same bog. Picnic once a year, via stat to some faraway place that wasn’t all built up yet—bread and circuses, keep the prolets happy. But it hurt to see a tree and then come back to Appalachia. There was actual pain in it, Helaine thought miserably. She had not bargained for this when she married Norm Pomrath. He had been full of plans.

The children ate and left for school. Norm remained where he was, turning and twisting the faxtape in his stubby fingers. Now and then he shared an item of news with her. “Danton’s dedicating a new hospital in Pacifica next Tuesday. Totally automated, one big homeostat and no technicians at all. Isn’t that nice? It reduces government expenditures when no employees are required. And here’s a good one, too. Effective the first of May, oxy quotas in all commercial buildings are reduced by ten per cent. They say it’s to enable additional gas supplies to reach householders. You remember that, Helaine, when they cut the home quota too around August.

It always goes down. When it gets to the point where they’re rationing air—”

“Norm, don’t get worked up.”

He ignored her. “How did all this happen to us? We’ve got a right to something better. Four million people per square inch, that’s where we’re heading. Build the houses a thousand storeys high so there’s room for everyone, and it takes a month to get down to street level or up to the quickboat ramp, but what of it? It’s progress. And—”

“Do you think you’ll be able to locate this Lanoy and get a job through him?” she asked.

“What we need,” he went on, “is a first-class bacterial plague. Selective, of course. Wipe out all those who are lacking in functional job skills. That cuts the dole roll by a few billion units a day. Devote the tax money to makework programmes for the rest. If that doesn’t work, start a war. Extraterrestrial enemies, the Crab People from the Crab Nebula, everything for patriotism. Start a losing war. Cannonfodder.”

He’s cracking up, Helaine thought as her husband went on talking. It was an endless monologue these days, a spewing fountain of bitterness. She tried not to listen. Since he showed no sign of leaving the apartment, she did. She hurled the dishes into the disposal unit and said to him, “I’m going to visit the neighbours,” and walked out just as he launched into an exposition of the virtues of controlled nuclear warfare as a means of population check. Random spasms of noise, that was what Norm Pomrath was producing these days. He had to hear himself talk, so that he did not forget he was still there. Where shall I go? Helen wondered.

Beth Wisnack, widowed by her time-hopping husband, looked smaller, greyer, sadder today than she had looked on Helaine’s last visit. Beth’s mouth was tightly drawn back in the quirk of suppressed rage. Behind the look of feminine resignation that she wore was inward fury: how dare he do this to me; how could he abandon me like this?

Courteously Beth offered an alcohol tube to her guest. Helaine smiled pleasantly, took the snub-ended red plastic tube, thrust it against the fleshy part of her arm. Beth did the same. The ultrasonic snouts whirred; the stimulant spurted into their bloodstreams. An easy drunk, for those who did not like the taste of modem liquors. Helaine flickered her eyes, relaxing. She listened for a while to Beth’s song of complaint, pitched all on one note.

Then Helaine said, “Beth, do you know about someone called Lanoy?”

Beth was at instant attention. “Who Lanoy? What Lanoy? Where did you hear of him? What do you know of him?”

“Not much. That’s why I asked you.”

“I heard the name, yes.” Her pale eyes were agitated. “Bud mentioned it. I heard him talking, telling some other man, Lanoy this, Lanoy that ... It was the week before he ran out on me. Lanoy, he said. Lanoy will fix it.”

Helaine reached for a second alcohol tube without waiting to be invited. There was a sudden chill inside her that needed to be thawed.

“Lanoy will fix what?” she asked.

Beth Wisnack subsided defeatedly. “I don’t know. Bud never discussed things with me. But I heard him talking about this Lanoy, anyway. A lot of whispering going on. Just before he left, he was talking Lanoy all the time. I’ve got a theory about Lanoy. You want to hear?”

“Of course!”

Smiling, Beth said, “I think Lanoy’s the one who runs the hopper business.”

Helaine had thought so too. But she had come here to learn otherwise, not to have her worst fears confirmed. Tense, her hands trembling a little, she smoothed her tunic, shifted her position, and said, “You really think so? Do you have any reason to believe it?”

“Bud talked Lanoy all week. Then he disappeared. He was hatching something and it had to do with Lanoy. I should know what? But I’ve got my theories. Bud met this Lanoy somewhere. They struck a deal. And—and—” The pain and rage welled too close to the surface. “And Bud left,” Beth Wisnack said breathily. She popped another tube. Then she said, “Why do you ask?”

“I found a slip in Norman’s clothes,” Helaine said. “It was some kind of advert. ‘Out of work? See Lanoy.’ I asked him about it. He got very embarrassed. Took the slip away from me, tried to tell me it was an employment agency, something like that. I could see he was lying. Hiding something. The trouble is, I don’t know what.”