Robert Silverberg - The Time Hoppers

Did Koll know the truth? Quellen soon would find that out.

Restlessly he walked down the echoing corridor to the monitoring wing. Might as well find out what they’ve learned about Norm, he thought. The brown metal gate slithered into its slot as Quellen palmed the door identification plaque. He went in. Instruments hummed all over the place. Technicians salaamed to him. The smell of some antiseptic chemical was in the air, as though this were a hospital.

“The Pomrath monitor bank,” Quellen said.

“This way, CrimeSec.”

Who’s watching it?”

“It’s been on automatic, sir. Here we are.” The man pulled out a pneumochair. Quellen planted himself before the turning spools of a tape pick-up. The technician said, “Would you like to plug in on realtime first, or go over what we’ve taped since last night?”

“I’ll do a little of both,” Quellen said.

“This is the realtime jack, and this—”

“I know. I’ve used the equipment before.”

The technician coloured and went scuttering away. Quellen jacked himself into the realtime circuit, and abruptly jacked himself out again. His brother-in-law was performing natural bodily functions. Quellen bit his lip. With a quick, edgy manipulation he activated the reserve spools and tuned in on what Norm Pomrath had been up to since Brogg had planted the Ear on him.

Quellen could not allow himself a one-to-one realtime correlation, of course, with Pomrath’s activities. He had to be selective. Skimming along the tape, he found remarkably little conversation recorded. Pomrath had been to a sniffer palace last night. Then he had gone home. He had quarrelled with Helaine. Quellen listened.

POMRATH : I don’t give a damn. I need my relaxation.

HELAINE : But we’ve waited dinner for you. And here you are full of drugs. You don’t even have an appetite!

POMRATH: What of it? I’m here. Put out the dinner. You programme, I’ll eat!

There was more of it, all relentlessly domestic and dreadfully dull. Quellen skipped ahead fifteen minutes and found the quarrel still going on, punctuated now by the snuffling sound of his nephew’s tears and the annoyed comments of little Marina. It pained Quellen that the family disputes of the Pomraths should be so commonplace. He moved the tape on a short distance. The Ear had picked up different sounds. Harsh breathing sounds.

HELAINE : Put your hand there again.

POMRATH : Oh, honey, you know I will.

HELAINE: Right there. Oh! Oh, Norm!

POMRATH: Are you ready yet?

HELAINE: A little while. Give me time. This is so nice, Norm.

Quellen stared shamefully at the floor. A faintly incestuous pleasure went through him as he eavesdropped on the love-making of the Pomraths. He reached for the dial, hesitated, listened to sudden pangs of ecstasy, clenched his jaws together as the words on the tape became more intimate and then dissolved into a rush of gasping sighs.

I ought to erase this section, Quellen thought. I ought at least not to listen to it myself. How disgustingly curious we can get sometimes!

With a quick jerky motion he sped the dial ahead. Nothing but sleep-sounds now. Then morning-sounds. Children pattering around. Pomrath under the molecular bath. Helaine yawning, asking about the breakfast menu.

POMRATH : I’m going out early today.

HELAINE: You think you have a line on that job opportunity?

POMRATH: What job opportunity?

HELAINE : You know, the minislip you were carrying. About the man to see if you’re out of work.

POMRATH: Oh. Him.

Quellen waited for more. The telemetry showed unusual excitement in Pomrath, a surge of pulse intensity, a rise in skin temperature. Nevertheless, the conversation was truncated without any word about Lanoy. Quellen skimmed again. The timer told him that he was approaching realtime levels now. Quellen jacked in once more.

POMRATH : You can take me to Lanoy, can’t you?

The monitor was programmed to trip an alarm when the name “Lanoy” was mentioned. There was an imperceptible lag while the computer analysed the wave forms of Pomrath’s speech, and then the alarm went off. A red light began to glow on the control panel of the monitor system. Signals blared around the room. A warning bell sounded. Pong. Pong.

Three technicians came running towards the instrument.

Pong.

Quellen said, “It’s all right. I’ll monitor it. Just shut off these damned alarms.”

Pong. Pong.

Quellen leaned forward, and sweat poured down the palms of his hands as he listened to his brother-in-law commit the ultimate betrayal of his family.

Pomrath had travelled a considerable distance that morning, unaware, of course, that his motions were being transmitted to the headquarters of the Secretariat of Crime and that his words and even his heartbeats were being recorded.

In the past several days he had asked many questions, mostly prior to the mounting of the Ear in his flesh. The mini-slips advertising Lanoy’s services were widely distributed. Information about the actual whereabouts of Lanoy was not so easily had. But Pomrath had persistence.

He was determined to leave, now.

He had had all he could take. It was too bad about Helaine, of course, and the kids. He’d miss them. Yet he was fed up, and he sensed that he was on the edge of psychotic collapse. Words were losing their meaning for him. He’d stare at a faxtape for half an hour, trying to puzzle out the significance of the rows of symbols on the yellow sheet. They had become squirming microbes to him. KLOOFMAN. UNEMPLOYMENT. TAX RATE. DANTON. MAN-KLOOF. LOYPMEMUNTNE. TONDAN. XAT RAET. KL. OOF. PLOYM. AX R. Dancing animalcules. EMPL. FMAN. Time to get away. ANTO. UNEM. TNEM. FLOOK. FLOOK! FLOOK! FLOOK!

KLOOF!

A simpler world, that’s what he needed. To hop to a place not yet this fouled with humanity—yes. Yes. Lanoy was the answer. Pomrath’s head throbbed. It seemed to him that his frontal lobes were swelling, pushing his forehead dangerously forward. “Can you direct me to Lanoy?” His head might burst, spewing brains all over the street. “I’m out of work. I want to see Lanoy.” FLOOK! XAT RAET! “Lanoy?”

A squat, flabby-faced man with a row of natural teeth on top and a single seamless chopper below said, “I’ll get you to Lanoy. Four pieces, huh?”

Pomrath paid him. “Where do I go? What do I do?”

“Quickboat. Number Sixteen Line.”

“Where do I get off?”

“Just get on, that’s all.”

EMPL! FMAN! Pomrath headed for the quickboat ramp. He filed obediently aboard. It seemed a pleasant coincidence that someone would have been so conveniently available to tell him how to reach the elusive Lanoy, Norm thought. But a moment’s reflection led him to think it was no coincidence at all. The flabby-faced man had probably been an agent of Lanoy, haunting him, ready to guide him in the right direction when the critical moment approached. Of course. His eyes were aching. Something coarse and gritty was in the air, a special eyeball-abrasive gas, perhaps, released by order of the High Government to bring about universal polishing of proletarian corneas. MANK! NOTD! Pomrath huddled in a corner of the quickboat. A cowled figure came up to him, a girl with shaven scalp, jutting cheekbones, no lips at all. “For Lanoy?” she asked.

“Why not?”

“Transfer to the Northpass Line.”

“If you say so.”

“It’s the only way.” She smiled at him. Her skin seemed to change colour, cycling attractively through the spectrum from infragreen to ultralemon. PLOYM! XAT! Pomrath trembled. He wondered what Helaine would say when she knew. Would she weep? How soon would she remarry? Would his children bear his name? The line of Pomraths extinct? Yes. Yes. For he would have to bear some other name back there. FMANK! What if he called himself Kloofman? Sublime irony: my great-grandchild a member of the High Government. Some chance.