Robert Silverberg: The Time Hoppers

“All right, Koll,” Spanner grunted. “I’ll even grant that it will mix up the past. I’ll concede that much.”

“Well, that’s something,” the small man said.

“Don’t interrupt me. I still think we’ve got to put a stop to it. We can’t undo what’s done, but we can cut it short this year. In fact, we must.”

Koll glared balefully at Spanner. Quellen could see that his own presence was the only reason Koll was concealing the anger lying just behind his eyes. They would be spewing curses at one another if the underling Quellen did not happen to be in the room.

“Why, Spanner, why?” Koll demanded in what passed for measured tones. “If we keep the process going we maintain things as they are. Four thousand of them went in “86, nine thousand in “87, fifty thousand in “88. And when we get last year’s figures, they’ll be even higher. Look—here it says that over a million hoppers arrived in the first eighty years, and after that the figures kept rising. Think of the population we’re losing! It’s wonderful! We can’t afford to let these people stay here, when we have a chance to get rid of them. And when history says that we did get rid of them.”

“History also says that they stopped going back to the post after 2491. Which means that we caught them next year,” Spanner said. “I mean, that we will catch them next year. It’s ordained. We’ve got no choice but to obey. The past’s a closed book.”

“Is it?” Koll laughed; it was almost a bark. “What if we don’t solve it? What if the hoppers keep on going back?”

“It didn’t happen that way, though. We know it. All the hoppers who reached the past came from the years 2486 to 2491. That’s a matter of record,” said Spanner doggedly. “Records can be falsified.”

“The High Government wants this traffic stopped. Why must I argue with you, Koll? You want to defy history, that’s your business, but defying Them as well? No. We don’t have that option.”

“But to dear away millions of prolets—”

Spanner grunted and tightened his grasp on the minislips he was holding. Quellen, feeling like an intruder, let his eyes flick back from one man to the other.

“All right,” Spanner said slowly. “I’ll agree with you that it’s nice to keep losing all those prolets. Even though on the face of things it appears that we won’t go on losing them much longer. You say we have to let it keep going on, or else it’ll alter the past. I take the opposite view. But let that pass. I won’t argue the point, since you seem so positive. Furthermore, you think that it’s a good thing to use this time-hopper business as a method of reducing population. I’m with you on that too, Koll. I don’t like overcrowding any more than you do, and I’ll admit things have reached a ridiculous state nowadays. But consider: we’re being hoodwinked. For someone to be running a time-travel business behind our backs is illegal and unethical and a lot of other things, and he ought to be stopped. What do you say, Quellen? Ultimately this is going to be the responsibility of your department, you know.”

The sudden reference to him came as a jolt. Quellen was still struggling to get his bearings in this debate, and he was not entirely sure what they were talking about. He smiled weakly and shook his head.

“No opinion?” Koll asked him abrasively.

Quellen looked at him. He was unable to stare straight into Koll’s hard, colourless eyes, and so he let his gaze rest on the bureau manager’s cheekbones instead. He remained silent.

“No opinion, Quellen? That’s too bad indeed. It doesn’t speak well of you.”

Quellen repressed a shudder. “I’m afraid that I haven’t been keeping up with the latest developments in the time-hopper case. As you know, I’ve been very busy on certain projects that—”

He let his voice trail off, feeling like a fool. His eager assistants probably knew all about this situation, he thought. He wondered why he had never bothered to check with Brogg. But how could he anticipate everything?

Koll said, “Are you aware that thousands of prolets have vanished into nowhere since the beginning of the year, Quellen?”

“No, sir. Ah, I mean, of course, sir. Certainly. It’s just that we haven’t really had a chance to take action on it,” Quellen said.

The footling sound of his own voice appalled him. Very lame, Quellen, very lame, he told himself. Of course you don’t know anything about it, when you spend all your free time in that pretty little hideaway across the ocean. But Stanley Brogg probably knows every detail. Brogg is very efficient.

“Well, just where do you think they’ve gone?” Koll asked. “Maybe you think they’ve all hopped into stats and gone off somewhere to look for work? To Africa, maybe?”

The barb had poison on it. Quellen came close to gasping in shock before he could convince himself that Koll was stabbing in the dark. He hid his reaction as well as he could and replied evenly, “I have no idea, sir.”

“You haven’t been reading your history books very well, then, Quellen. Think, man: what was the most important historical development of the past five centuries?”

Quellen thought. What, indeed? The Entente? The coming of the High Government? The breakdown of the nations? The stat? He hated the way Koll could turn him into an idiotic schoolboy. Quellen knew he was no fool, however inane he might seem when hauled on the carpet. He was competent enough. But at the core of his being was his vulnerability, his hidden crime, and that meant he was jelly at the core. He began to sweat. He said, “I’m not sure how to evaluate that question, sir.”

Koll casually flipped the oxy up a little higher, in an almost insulting gesture of friendliness. The sweet gas purred into the room. Softly Koll said, “I’ll tell you, then. It’s the arrival of the hoppers. And this is the era they’re starting out from.”

“Of course,” Quellen said. Everyone knew about the hoppers, and he was annoyed with himself for not simply offering the obvious to Koll.

“Someone’s developed time travel in the past few years,” Spanner said. “He’s beginning to siphon the time-hoppers back to the past. Thousands of unemployed prolets are gone already, and if we don’t catch him soon he’ll clutter up the past with every wandering workingman in the country.”

“So? That’s my point,” Koll said impatiently. “We know they’ve already arrived in the past; our history books say so. Now we can sit back and let this fellow distribute our refuse all over the previous five centuries.”

Spanner swivelled round and confronted Quellen. “What do you think?” he demanded. “Should we follow the order of the High Government, round up this fellow, and stop the departure of the hoppers? Or should we do as Koll says and let everything go on, which defies not only Them but also incidentally the information of history?”

“I’ll need time to study the case,” Quellen said suspiciously. The last thing that he wanted to have happen to him was to be forced into making a judgement in favour of one superior over another.

“Let me show you your path right now,” Spanner said, with a side glance at Koll. “We have our instructions from the High Government, and it’s futile to debate them. As Koll here knows quite well, Kloofman himself has taken an interest in this case. Our task is to locate the illegal nexus of time-travel activity and bring it under official control. Koll, if you object, you’d better appeal to the High Government.”

“No objections,” said Koll. “Quellen?”

Quellen stiffened. “Yes, sir?”

“You heard Mr Spanner. Get on it, fast. Track down this fellow who’s shipping the hoppers and put him away, but not before you get his secret out of him. The High Government wants control of the process. And a halt to this illegal activity. It’s all yours, Quellen.”