Robert Silverberg - The Time Hoppers

“I have two other documented hoppers hidden away,” said Quellen blandly. “One is due to depart later this year and the other one early next year. They’re further insurance that you won’t harm me after I’ve given you Mortensen.”

“You’re bluffing, Quellen. You’ve invented those other two hoppers on the spot. I’ll put you under a neural probe and check on it.”

“The moment the probe touches my brain,” said Quellen, “Mortensen will die.”

Kloofman felt unaccustomed anguish. He was certain that this infuriating prolet was piling bluff upon bluff—but there was no way of proving that without peering into his brain, and bluff number one made it too risky for Kloofman to try that It might just not be a bluff.

He said, “What do you really want, Quellen?”

“I’ve told you. A pledge of immunity, before witnesses. I want you to guarantee that I won’t be punished for maintaining my place in Africa, and that I’ll come to no harm for having bearded you like this. Then I’ll give you the slyster and Mortensen.”

“And the other two hoppers.”

“Those also. After I’ve become assured of your good faith.”

“You’re incredible, Quellen. But you seem to hold a strong position. I can’t let you keep Mortensen. And I want that time machine. It’s got many uses for us. Profitable ones. Politically beneficial uses. Too dangerous to let it stay in private hands. All right. All right. You’ll have your pledge. I’ll give you more than that, Quellen.”

“More, sir?”

“Your villa’s Class Two, you say? I assume you want to go on living in it. We’ll have to make you Class Two then, won’t we?”

“Take me into the High Government, sir?”

“Of course,” said Kloofman warmly. “Consider: how can I send you back to lower levels, after you’ve triumphed over me like this? You’ve won status. I’ll put you up here. Giacomin will find room for you. A man who’s done what you’ve done can’t possibly remain in a low bureaucratic post, Quellen. So we’ll arrange something. You’ve won more than you came looking for.” Kloofman smiled. “I congratulate you, Quellen.”

Quellen erupted into the upper air, after having risen level upon level upon level from the mythical catacomb that was the lair of Peter Kloofman. He staggered out into the street and planted himself solidly, feet on the pavement, head upturned to the towers far above. He saw the lacy connecting bridges, the gleaming cones atop the buildings, the faint patch of blue light beyond the summits.

I don’t have much time, Quellen thought.

He was numb with shock after his interview with Kloofman. In retrospect he had no idea how he had carried off such an enterprise. To muscle his way into the lair of a Class One administrator, to stand there bluntly making demands and having Kloofman accede to them, to pile fraud upon fraud and carry his bluffs home—it was not real. It couldn’t be. It had to be some sniffer-palace fantasy, some dream of power that would fade with the ebbing of the drug from his brain.

Yet the buildings were real. The sky was real. The pavements were real. And the interview with Kloofman had been real, too. He had won. He had been invited to accept Class Two status. He had compelled Kloofman to retreat.

Quellen knew that he had not won a thing.

He had done his audacious manoeuvre with reasonable aplomb, but it had been a fool’s manoeuvre, and he saw that more clearly now than he had an hour before. Any man could be proud of having had the nerve to confront Kloofman like that, but, having done it, Quellen knew that he had gained no real safety, only the temporary illusion of triumph. It would be necessary to activate the alternate plan that he had been nurturing for some hours. His mind had prepared itself for this eventuality, and he knew what he had to do, though he was not at all sure that he would have time to do it.

He was in mortal danger. He had to act fast.

Kloofman had not fooled him with his smiles, his words of praise, his promise of an uptwitch to High Government status, his apparent delight in Quellen’s audacity. Kloofman was frightened that something might happen to Mortensen that could topple his own power, yes, but Kloofman could not be pushed around as easily as it seemed.

He’ll get Lanoy and Mortensen from me, Quellen knew, and then he’ll destroy me. I should have realized that from the start. How could I hope to outsmart Kloofman?

But he did not regret having made the attempt. A man is not a worm; he can stand up on his legs, he can fight for his position. He can try. Quellen had tried. He had done something foolhardy to the point of absurdity, and he had carried it off with honour, even if his success was probably unreal.

Now, though, he had to hasten to protect himself against Kloofman’s wrath. He had at least a little time in which to operate. The euphoria of his meeting with Kloofman had worn off, and he was thinking clearly and rationally.

He reached the headquarters of the Secretariat of Crime and immediately gave orders for Lanoy to be taken from the custody tank once again. The slyster was brought to Quellen’s office. He looked moody and downcast.

“You’re going to be sorry for this, Quellen,” Lanoy said bitterly. “I wasn’t joking when I said Brogg had keyed all his telltales over to me. I can have the news of your African place in the hands of the High Government in—”

“You don’t need to inform on me,” said Quellen, “I’m letting you go.”

Lanoy was startled. “But you said—”

“That was earlier. I’m releasing you and wiping out as much as I can of the records involving you.”

“So you gave in after all, Quellen? You knew you couldn’t take the risk that I’d expose you?”

“On the contrary, I haven’t given in. I told the High Government about my African place myself. I let Kloofman himself know, in person. No sense wasting time talking to underlings. So your telltales won’t be telling anything that isn’t already known.”

“You can’t ask me to believe that, Quellen!”

“It’s the truth, though. And therefore the price for my letting you go has changed. It isn’t your silence any more. It’s your services.”

Lanoy’s eyes widened. “What have you been up to?”

“Plenty. But there’s no time for me to explain it now. I’ll get you safely out of this building. You’ve got to get back to your lab on your own power. I’ll join you there in about an hour.” Quellen shook his head. “Not that I think you’ll stay free for very long, Lanoy. Kloofman’s hungry for your machine. He wants to use it to send political prisoners back. And to raise public revenues. He’ll solve his unemployment problem by shooting the prolets back to 500,000 BC and letting them get eaten by tigers. You’ll be picked up again, I’m sure of it. But at least it won’t be my doing.”

He escorted Lanoy from the building. The little slyster gave Quellen a baffled look as he scuttled away towards the quickboat ramp.

“I’ll be seeing you in a little while,” Quellen said.

He boarded a quickboat himself, a local, and headed for his apartment to perform one last chore. Had Kloofman taken steps against him yet? Doubtless. They were having frantic conferences in the chambers of the High Government. It wouldn’t be long now, though, and Quellen would be safe.

He had come to understand a great many things. Why Kloofman wanted the machine so badly, for one thing: as a tool to extend his own power over the world. Unscrupulous, it was. And I nearly helped him get it.

Then, too, Quellen saw why the recorded hoppers had all come from 2486-91. It didn’t mean that the backward flow had been cut off next year, as he had assumed. It simply meant that control of the machine had passed then from Lanoy to Kloofman, and that all hoppers sent back after 2491 were hurled by the new process, which had a greater range, thrown back so far that they could be no possible threat to Kloofman’s regime. And would not, of course, show up in any historical records. Quellen shuddered. He wanted no part of a world in which the government held such powers.