Up The Line

16.

I went on four more training missions before they certified me as a Time Courier. All my jumps were made in the New Orleans area. I got to know the history of that area a lot better than I ever thought I would.

The third of these trips was to 1803, the Louisiana Purchase run. I was the only trainee. There were seven tourists. Our Courier was a hard-faced little man named Sid Buonocore. When I mentioned his name to Sam, Sam guffawed and said, “That shady character!”

“What’s shady about him?”

“They used to have him on the Renaissance run. Then the Time Patrol caught him pimping lady tourists to Cesare Borgia. The tourist gals paid him nicely, and so did Cesare. Buonocore claimed he was just doing his job — letting his girls get a deeper experience of the Renaissance, you know. But they pulled him back here and stuck him on Louisiana Purchase.”

“Is a Courier supposed to supervise the sex life of his tourists?” I asked.

“No, but he isn’t supposed to encourage transtemporal fornication, either.”

I found the encourager of transtemporal fornication to be an engaging rakish sort. Buonocore was a long way from handsome, but he had an aura of omnivorous sexuality about him that I had to admire. And his high regard for his own welfare was so obvious that it had a certain rapacious charm. You can’t applaud a skulking pick-pocket, but you can cheer an out-and-out brigand. That was what Sid Buonocore was.

He was a capable Courier, besides. He slipped us cunningly into 1803 New Orleans in the guise of a party of Dutch traders making a market tour; as long as we didn’t meet a real Hollander we were safe, and our “Dutch” label covered the oddities of our futuristic accents. We strode around town uncomfortably garbed in early nineteenth-century clothing, feeling like refugees from a costume drama, and Sid showed us the sights in fine fashion.

On the side, I quickly discovered, he was carrying on a flourishing trade in gold doubloons and Spanish eight-real pieces. He didn’t bother to conceal what he was doing from me, but he didn’t talk about it, either, and I never really figured out all the intricate details. It had something to do — maybe — with taking advantage of variable exchange rates. All I know is that he swapped United States silver dollars for British gold guineas, used the guineas to buy French silver currency at a big discount, and met with Caribbean buccaneers by night on the banks of the Mississippi to trade the French coins for Spanish gold and silver. What he did with his doubloons and eight-real pieces I never knew. Nor could I see where the profit in the deal was coming from. My best theory was that he simply was trying to switch as many currencies around as possible, in order to build up a stock of coins for sale to collectors down the line; but somehow that seemed too simple-minded an operation for someone of his style. He didn’t offer explanations and I was too shy to ask.

He was also a busy sexman. That isn’t unusual for a Courier. (“The lady tourists are fair game,” Sam said. “They fall all over themselves to submit to us. It’s like the white-hunter thing in Africa.”) But Sid Buonocore didn’t just confine himself to plugging romance-hungry tourists, I discovered.

Late one night in our 1803 trip I was bothered with some procedural point and went to the Courier’s bedroom to ask him about it. I knocked and he said, “Come in,” so I went in, but he wasn’t alone. A tawny maiden with long black hair was sprawled on the bed, naked, sweat-shiny, rumpled. Her breasts were hard and heavy and her nipples were chocolate-colored. “Excuse me,” I said. “I didn’t mean to intrude.” Sid Buonocore laughed. “Crap,” he said. “We’re finished for now. You aren’t interrupting things. This is Maria.”

“Hello, Maria,” I said tentatively.

She giggled drunkenly. Sid spoke to her in the Creole patois and she giggled again. Rising from the bed, she performed an elegant nude curtsy before me and murmured, “Bon soir, m’sieu.” Then she fell on her face with a gentle swooning fall.

“She’s lovely, isn’t she?” Sid asked proudly. “Half Indian, half Spanish, half French. Have some rum.”

I took a gulp from the flask he proffered. “That’s too many halves,” I said.

“Maria doesn’t do anything in a petty way.”

“So I see.”

“I met her on my last trip through here. I’m timing things very carefully so that I can have her for a little while each night, and still not deprive my other selves of her. I mean, I can’t predict how often I’ll be doing this goddam run, Jud, but I might as well set myself up nicely each time I go up the line.”

“Should you be saying such things in front of—”

“Doesn’t speak a word of English. Absolutely safe.”

Maria stirred and moaned. Sid took the rum flask from me and let some splash down onto her chest. She giggled again, and sleepily began to rub it into her breasts like a magic growth ointment. She didn’t need any ointment.

Sid said, “She’s quite passionate.”

“I’m sure.”

He said something to her and she lurched to her feet and came toward me. Her breasts swayed like bells. Fumes of rum and fumes of lust rose from her. Unsteadily she reached her hands toward me, but she lost her balance and slipped once again to the planked floor. She lay there chuckling.

“Want to try her?” Sid asked. “Let her sober up a little, and take her back to your room and have some fun.”

I said something about the interesting diseases she might be carrying. Sometimes I break out all over with fastidiousness at funny moments.

Buonocore spat scornfully. “You’ve had your shots. What are you worrying about?”

“They immunized us against typhoid and diphtheria and yellow fever and all that,” I said. “But syphilis?”

“She’s clean. Believe me. Anyway, if you’re nervous, you can take a thermobath the minute you go down the line.” He shrugged. “If something like that scares you, maybe you better not be a Courier.”

“I didn’t—”

“You saw that I was willing to ball her, didn’t you? Jud, do you think I’m an ordinary fool or a goddam fool? Would I go to bed with a syphilitic? And then offer her to you?”

“Well—”

“There’s only one thing you do have to worry about,” he said. “Have you had your pill?”

“My pill?”

“Your pill, stupid! Your monthly pill!”

“Oh. Yes. Yes, of course.”

“That’s vital, if you’re going to go up the line. You don’t want to run around fertilizing other people’s ancestors. The Time Patrol will really scrape you for a thing like that. You can get away with a little fraternization with up-the-line people — you can do some business with them, you can go to bed with them — but you damned well better not plant any babies in them. Got it?”

“Sure, Sid.”

“Remember, just because I fool around a little, that doesn’t mean I’m willing to risk changing the past in a big way. Like fouling up the genetic flow by making babies up the line. Go you and do likewise, kid. Don’t forget your pills. Now take Maria and clear out.”

I took Maria and cleared out.

She sobered up fast in my room. She couldn’t speak a word of any language I understood. I couldn’t speak a word of any language she understood. But we made out all right anyway.

Even though she was 250 years older than me, there was nothing wrong with any aspect of her performance. Some things don’t change much.