Robert Silverberg - The Time Hoppers

It had been a sombre night for Quellen. He knew, of course, that Norm Pomrath had gone to the past. He had been listening helplessly, jacked into the realtime circuit, while Pomrath and Lanoy discussed the project and came to an agreement. Then and there, Pomrath had paid over his money—virtually wiping out the family savings—and had stepped up on the platform to be thrust into the year 2050. Ear transmission had ceased at that point. The Ear was a sensitive device, but it had no way of broadcasting across a temporal gap.

Helaine’s stony face had been unpleasant to behold. She blamed him for what had happened, Quellen knew; and she never would really forgive him. So his sister, his only relative, was lost to him. And Judith, too, was lost. Since the fiasco at the social regurgitation communion, she had refused to take any calls from him. He knew that he would never see her again. The slender bare form in the sprayon costume postured wantonly in Quellen’s dreams, waking him often.

The only comfort in a generally bleak situation was the fact that Lanoy had been found and arrested. That meant the heat would be off the department soon. With the hopper ring smashed, life could revert to routine, and Quellen would be free to spend most of his time in Africa, once again. Unless, of course, Brogg had really betrayed him. Quellen had forgotten about that. Koll’s unfriendly tone of yesterday—did it mean that his own arrest was in the offing, as soon as the Lanoy affair was wrapped up?

Quellen got his answer to that shortly before midnight, when Koll called. For Koll, office hours extended throughout the night and the day.

“I’ve just checked with the office,” Koll said. “They tell me you’ve got the slyster.”

“Yes. He was brought in around eighteen, nineteen this evening. Brogg and Leeward traced him. They’ve put him in the custody tank. I’ll interrogate him in the morning.”

“Good job,” Koll said, and Quellen noticed the trace of an honest smile flickering on the small man’s lips. “This keys nicely into the status meeting Spanner and I had this afternoon. I’ve just put through a promotion form for you. It seems unfair to let the CrimeSec live in a Class Seven unit when he rates at least a Six, don’t you think? You’ll be joining Spanner and me in your higher grade quite soon. Of course, that won’t affect your slope in the office hierarchy, but I thought you’d be pleased.”

Quellen was pleased. And relieved. So he doesn’t know about Africa after all. It was just my guilty conscience stirring up fears. Then a new worry came: how could he move the illegal stat to new quarters without being detected? It had been hard enough to get it installed here. Perhaps Koll was only leading him deeper into a trap. Quellen pressed his palms against his temples and shivered, waiting for morning—and Lanoy.

“You admit you’ve been sending people into the past?” Quellen demanded.

“Sure,” said the little man flippantly. Quellen stared at him, feeling an irrational pulse of anger throbbing in his skull. How could the slyster be so calm? “Sure,” Lanoy said. “I’ll send you back for two hundred units.”

Leeward stood massively behind the little man, and Quellen faced him over the interrogation table. Brogg had not appeared at the office this morning. Koll and Spanner were listening from their own office next door. The slyster looked waxen-faced and limp from his night in the custody tank, and yet he held himself with dignity.

“You’re Lanoy?” Quellen jabbed.

“That’s my name.” He was a small, dark, intense, rabbity sort of man, with thin lips constantly moving. “Sure, I’m Lanoy.” The little slyster radiated a confident warmth. He was gaining strength from moment to moment. Now he sat with his legs crossed and his head thrown back.

“It was pretty nasty the way your boys tracked me down,” Lanoy said. “It was bad enough that you fooled that poor dumb prolet into leading you to me, but you didn’t have to dump me in the tank like that. I spent a lousy night. I’m not doing anything illegal, you know. I ought to sue.”

“Nothing illegal? You’re disturbing the past five hundred years!”

“I am not,” Lanoy said calmly. “Nothing of the sort. They’ve already been disturbed. It’s a matter of record, you know. I’m just seeing to it that past history gets to take place the way it took place, if you follow what I’m saying. I’m a public benefactor. What if I weren’t fulfilling the records?”

Quellen glowered at the arrogant slyster. He turned to pace, found that he had no room to move in the tiny office, and sat down ineffectually at his desk. He felt strangely weak in the presence of the slyster. The man had power. Quellen said, “You admit that you’re sending prolets back as hoppers. Why?”

Lanoy smiled. “To earn a living. Surely you understand that. I’m in possession of a very valuable process, and I want to make sure I get all I can out of it.”

“Are you the inventor of the time-travel process?”

“I don’t claim to be. But it doesn’t matter,” said Lanoy. “I control it.”

“If you want to exploit your machine for money, why don’t you simply go back in time and steal, or place bets on the arthropods, to make a living? Grab a quick killing on the outcome of a race that’s in the records, then come back here.”

“I could do that.” Lanoy admitted. “But the process is irreversible, and there’s no way of getting back to the present again with my winnings. Or my stealings. And I like it here, thank you.”

Quellen scratched his head. He liked it here? It seemed incredible that anyone would, but apparently Lanoy meant just what he said. One of those perverse aestheticians, undoubtedly, who could find beauty in a dunghill.

He said, “Look, Lanoy, I’ll be extremely frank with you: you’re subject to penalties for operating this enterprise without the consent of the High Government. Kloofman has ordered your arrest. I’m not prepared to say what sort of a sentence you’ll get, but it could be anything up to complete personality erasure, depending on your attitude. However, there’s one option for you. The High Government wants control of your time-travel gimmick. Turn it over to my men—not just the device, you understand, but the method. Your co-operation will win you a remission of your sentence to some degree.”

“Sorry,” said Lanoy. “The machine’s private property. You haven’t got any right to it.”

“The courts—”

“I’m not doing anything illegal, and so I don’t need to worry about what kind of sentence I’ll get. And I refuse to yield to your jurisdiction. The answer’s no.”

Quellen thought of the pressures that were on him from Koll and Spanner and even Kloofman to solve this case, and he got angry and frightened at the same time. He blurted, “When I get through with you, Lanoy, you’ll wish you’d used your own machine and gone back a million years. We can induce co-operation. We can reduce you to jelly.”

Lanoy’s cool smile did not waver. His voice was measured as he said, “Come now, CrimeSec. You’re starting to lose your temper, and that’s always illogical. Not to add dangerous.” Quellen sensed the truth of Lanoy’s warning. He struggled to calm himself, and lost the struggle. The muscles of his throat seemed to be writhing in knots. “I’ll keep you in the tank until you rot,” he snapped.

“Now where will that get you? I’ll be so much mouldy flesh, and you still won’t be able to deliver the time process to the High Government.” The slyster shrugged. “Would you mind giving me a little more oxy in here, please, by the way?

I happen to be suffocating.”

In his astonishment at the bold request, Quellen opened the vent wide. Leeward registered surprise at Lanoy’s breach of taste. No doubt the watchers in the next room were startled at Quellen’s abrupt capitulation, too.