From Time to Time (12 page)

"Sure. I know that. But we don't need the Project."

"It'll be 'we' when you find out why."

"Oh? And if 'we' don't need the Project, what do we need?"

Rube leaned forward over the tabletop, holding Dr. Danziger's eyes. "Si."

"Si Morley?"

Rube sat back, nodding. "Yep. Si Morley, the best we ever had.

That's who we need, and that's all we need. Can you reach him,

Dr. D? Can you?"

"Reach him? How? How reach him back in the nineteenth cen- tury?"

"I don't know." Rube sat looking at him. "I don't know, damn it!

You thought up the whole Project! It was your theory. If anyone can figure out how to reach Si Morley, it has to be you."

"Rube," he said gently. "Short of actually going back myself, how could I reach him?"

"You've tried going back?"

"Of course. And so have you, I'm certain."

"More than once. I'd give anything I have or ever will have to be able to do it. Just once. Even for only a minute." He sat looking across the table at the old man, then said, "It's funny; you and I niade the Project. Made it work. Yet we can't do it: we need Si."

With his clenched fist he softly, soundlessly pounded the tabletop.

"We need Si. You can't reach him? No way at all?"

The old man looked away, moving a shoulder in almost but not quite a shrug. He looked uncomfortable, frowning a little, arrang- ing his topcoat over one arm, and Rube Prien leaned forward, watching him intently. Then, his voice very soft now, and begin- ning to smile, Rube Prien said, "Oh, Doctor, Doctor: you can't quite lie, can you? You don't really know how. You know you ought to. You'd like to. And you try, but you can't fool me. You can reach Si Morley!"

"If I can, it won't help you." Danziger glanced around the room.

"The Project actually succeeded; I'll always know that. But then the troublemakers took over. You. Esterhazy. And whoever else was behind you, I never did know who: I am an innocent. But the

Project is gone now, and if I can't quite say I'm glad, I'm close."

He stood up, coat over an arm, hat in hand. "I'll never help you. I like you, Rube, God knows why. But you'd alter the past. In order to alter the present according to your own godlike understanding of what's best for the rest of us. Well, if there can be an idiot savant, there can be a sane madman. And there are always some around. Quite often brave men in uniform. Patriots. But still the enemy." He leaned toward Rube, extending his hand. "So I'll just say goodbye, thanking you for an interesting morning."

Rube stood up, face genial, shook Dr. Danziger's extended hand, and said, "Sit down, Dr. D. Because you are going to help me. You're going to get me in touch with Si Morley because you'll want to." He pulled over his attaché case, Dr. Danziger, still stand- ing, watching him. Rube snapped up the two brass fasteners, lifted the lid, and began removing the contents, tossing them to the table before Danziger: a glossy black-and-white photograph of what appeared to be a small-town Main Street; an old newspaper, edges brow'ned; a campaign button; a sheaf of letters clipped to- gether; an envelope with a triangular stamp; a tape cassette; an old book with a loose binding; a rubber-banded coil of black-and-white film. "Look at this stuff, Doctor. The photograph, take a look at that."

Face and movement reluctant, Dr. Danziger put down his coat and picked up the photograph. "Yes?"

"Well, look at it. A small-town Main Street, right? And taken in the forties, wouldn't you say? Look at the ears.

"Yes. There's a '42 Plymouth roadster; I once had one."

"Now look at the movie marquee: can you read it?"

"Of course; I'm not quite-"

"Okay. Read the title of the movie they're showing."

Twenty minutes later, Dr. Danziger-standing with a coil of movie film held up to the overhead fluorescent light, examining the frames of the final foot-finished, and tossed the film onto the table with the other things. "All right," he said irritably, sitting down. "These all say the same thing. In different ways. Events that apparently once happened one way seem now to have happened in another. Where'd you get them?" he asked curiously.

Rube shrugged. "A friend, a young army friend; they're more or less on loan."

"And what've they got to do with Si Morley?"

"Isn't that obvious?"

Rube nodded at the objects on the table. "He's doing this. He and maybe McNaughton-one more guy who broke his word and didn't come back! They're back there in the past, trampling around, changing things, aren't they? They don't know it. They're just living their happy lives, but changing small events. Mostly trivial, with no important effects. But every once in a while the effect of some small changed event moves on down to the-" He stood, frowning: Dr. Danziger was shaking his head, smiling.

"Why not!? What the hell, I'm quoting you!"

"Misqnoting. It takes more than a trivial event. It isn't Si. Or

McNanghton. Look at these things."

"I have. Most of last night. Looked till-"

"Well, look again. You shouldn't need this spelled out by a senile old man."

"You? That'll be the day." Rube Prien picked up the white cam- paign button and looked at the printed faces of John Kennedy and

Estes Kefanver; looked at the front page of the old newspaper.

Touched the tape cassette, the old film, the packet of letters, his expression growing irritable. Then he sat back, hooking an arm over the back of his chair. "Dr. D. You know I was nex'er in your league. Just tell me.

"Not one of these artifacts predates the early years of the ecu- tnrv. That didn't occur to you ? If Si, back in the lSSOs, were causing this he gestured at the scattered things on the table "some, at least, should have occurred much earlier. And if McNaughton, then none could predate the twenties." His face and voice had grown interested. "Something happened, sometime around 1912, it appears. Some kind of. . . what? Some very im- portant event, a kind of Big Bang, to steal a term. Something that altered the course of many subsequent events; these and undoubtedly others."

"What kind of Big Bang?"

"Who can say? You've read Si Morley's published account, his book?"

"Twice. Making notes. And cursing him out at least once a page.

"Yet an accurate account, wouldn't you say?"

"Oh, I don't know. What about that last chapter?"

Danziger laughed. "Oh, you're right, you're right! Not quite accurate there, thank the Lord. Keep my parents from ever meet- ing! Thus effectively preventing the Project itself. I enjoyed that.

But everything else was accurate, including your own grandiose ideas. So why do you suppose he wrote that final chap-"

"Wishful thinking. The way he'd have liked it to happen."

"I don't know: if he'd really wanted to do that, what could possi- bly have stopped him?"

Rube shook his head. "I have no way of knowing." They sat silent, reflecting; then Rube said, "Okay. But who did cause your

Big Bang?"

"Anyone who read Si's account of how he succeeded. And who then tried it himself. Or herself, as we are obliged to add now.

Tried and, unlike you and me . . . succeeded."

"Oh, come on! Are you serious? Just froni reading his account?"

"Oh, I know the difficulties. And how few ever managed even with the facilities we once had here: the School, the researchers, the Big Floor mockups. Virtually re-creating the whole town for

McNanghton. And yet just possibly, some reader, absolute ama- teur, was actually able-" He couldn't finish, breaking into laugh- ter. "Of course I'm not serious! I'm teasing you, Rube!" Still amused, he turned to gather up his coat and hat. "Well, it's been fascinating." He pushed back his chair to stand. "But now-so long, Rube. Thanks for everything, as we say.

"I can't believe you're walking out on this. You, the fanatic about any least change in the past." He swept his hand over the scattered objects on the table. "What about these changes!"

"You've never really understood, have you? Yes, these things seem to indicate a past that has been changed. Thus altering our present. And if I could have prevented it, no doubt I would have."

He set the palms of his hands flat on the table edge to lean forward, stiff-armed, toward Rube. "But now that altered order of events is our present. Would you change it again? Send Si Morley back if you could to.. . do something, you don't even know what, and produce some new order of events? Whose consequences you can't possibly foresee?"

Rube picked up the campaign button, saying, "What about this?" and tossed it to slide across the tabletop and stop faceup before Danziger.

Danziger glanced down at the two pictured faces, and took his hands from the table. "Yes. I liked that young man. It was a plea- sure having a President who could speak his own language. Flu- ently and properly. Often with grace and wit. When he stood speaking somewhere representing the United States, it was possible to feel proud. We haven't had many like that since Franklin Roosevelt. Yet in a fairly short time this charming young man took us closer to nuclear war than we've ever been before or since. And did it on defective information. Took us into the most foolish, badly planned venture, in Cuba, that I can easily conceive of. So what next, Rube? If he'd lived out his first term and had a second?

Would he have improved? Maybe. He might have grown into that enormous job. And the present we'd be living in now would have been something glorious. Or catastrophic. You can't say, you see, you can't say! But you want to gamble? Reach into the grab bag and find out?" He gestured at the photograph, the letters, the old newspaper, all the things on the table between them. "I'd love to know the cause of these: what event, what Big Bang, back in the early years of this century brought these changes about. And oth- ers undiscovered, no doubt. I'd love to know, but never will. And

I won't help you to know. You're a lovely man, Rube, as the Irish are supposed to say. But a troublemaker, a shit-disturber." He began getting himself into his coat, movements stiff. "So pick up your marvels, Rube, and go home. Let well enough alone. The Project is over.

"Okay." Rube smiled as he stood, so genuinely that Danziger smiled back in equal friendship. Rube began gathering the things on the table, dropping them into his leather case. "I'll walk down with you."

In the little street-level office Dr. Danziger, hat on now, stood buttoning his coat, glancing around. "Well. The Project's finished and I'll never be back. But whatever I ought to feel, mostly I'm just relieved." He looked questioningly at Rube, who stood waiting, his tan cloth cap in hand, but Rube merely shrugged, and Danziger nodded. "Yes," he said. "It actually meant more to you than even to me. A very great deal more, I think. Ready?"

Rube nodded, pulled on his cap, but continued to stand looking around, unable, it seemed to Danziger, to take the last steps. He reached forward to a wall and lifted off a small framed photograph of a mustached crew standing or squatting beside an old chain- drive moving truck; the photo was labeled The Gang in white ink.

"Here"-he offered it to Danziger. "You want a souvenir?"

Danziger hesitated, then nodded. "Yes. Thank you ." He took the photograph and slid it into his overcoat pocket. Rube took another framed photograph for himself, walked to the door, and when Danziger stepped out, switched off the light. Outside on the walk, he pulled the door closed, then locked it with a key he brought out from the breast pocket of his coat. "Which way you headed, Dr. D?"

"East, then a bus to home."

"Well, I hope to see you again sometime, Dr. Danziger."

"Yes, I hope to see you, Rube. I do. But let's just leave that to fate, all right?"

"Right. Okay." They shook hands, said goodbye, and turned away. After half a dozen steps Rube stopped to look down at the key in his hand. He glanced back to see Danziger walking away, then looked up the blank brick wall beside him to the weathered lettering painted around the roofline. He tightened his fingers on the key in his palm, turned and threw it, high and hard as he could, across the street. Stood listening, then heard it strike metal somewhere within the tall rows of stacked squashed car bodies behind the chain fence across the street. Then he walked away.

CHAPTER 9

WHEN HIS PHONE RANG at 3:51 in the morning, Rube Prien's eves immediately opened and he glanced at his clock as he picked up the phone. Speaking before it could ring again-pleased with him- self and his swift response, annoyed at knowing he was as sleepily confused as anyone else might be.

"Rube, it's Danz-"

"Hello, Dr. Danziger."

"I'm terribly sorry to c-

"It's all right. I know you have a reason.

"Believe me, I do. Rube: the newspaper you showed me at the

Project, the old paper.

"The New-York Courier."

"Yes. Rube, please. Get dressed. And bring it over. I'd come to your place, but-"

"I'll be dressed and out the door in four minutes."

"I'm slow, you see, so slow. At mv age it takes me forever to get up and get started. And this can't wait."

"I'm on my way.

"With the paper?"

"Oh, you bet."

In the high-ceilinged dining room overlooking West End Avenue,

Rube pulled out a chair at Dr. Danziger ' s gesture, and sat down at the table. He wore tan wash pants and a black pullover sweater.

Standing across from him in pajamas, maroon robe, slippers, wear- ing glasses, the dyed hair at the sides of his bald head disorderly,

Danziger spread the old newspaper, very slightly browned at the edges, on the table. He began scanning the columns of the front page, down and up, down and up, the shiny top of his head catch- ing light from the overhead chandelier. "This'll take a little time. I have to be certain."

Presently he turned the front page, opening the paper fully, the page a little larger than modern newspapers, Rube thought. Still scanning the pages column by column, Danziger absently pulled out a chair and sat down slowly, never stopping his scanning, head bobbing in slow motion. His glasses were magnifiers, and each time his head lowered they slid down a trifle, and each time he raised his head for the next column, his big forefinger lifted too, to poke them back into place.