Who Goes Here?

8

Under Peace’s fascinated scrutiny the walls of the little room began to exhibit colour changes.

One of his major worries was removed when he saw that the general condition of his surroundings was deteriorating. This meant he was travelling into the future and that the building was not going to leave him in mid-air by snapping out of existence. He relaxed for a moment, glad of the breathing space in which to sort out his jumbled thoughts, then came the realization that all buildings are eventually torn down. If he went too far into the future he could either be dashed to the ground or, worse still, find his body bisected by one of the walls of a replacement building.

Alarmed and aggrieved by the way in which life had been reduced to a succession of leaps from frying pans into fires, Peace hurriedly got to his feet, and to Peace’s eyes the room looked exactly as it had done when he first saw it. He glanced towards the door, half expecting to see two dreadful bronze-gold giants glaring at him with ruby eyes, but the landing outside was deserted. The stillness would have been tomb-like but for the faint murmur of city traffic outside.

Holding his improvised kilt in place around his loins, he advanced cautiously on to the landing. A thick layer of dust lay over everything, and it gave Peace a crawling sensation on the nape of his neck when he realized that Legge and his daughter, alive only one subjective minute ago, had probably seen out their allotted spans and now were resident in grave or funeral urn. He turned left, opened a door and went into the large room he had known as Legge’s laboratory. Some of the workbenches were still in place, but the jumble of equipment—with the exception of some small items and wiring—had long since been removed. Gazing around the time-ravaged walls, Peace tried to assimilate the items of half-knowledge he had gained.

Professor Legge’s daughter had recognized him, and she too had addressed him as Norman.

Did this mean that his name really was Norman? Or was it an alias he had used in a previous trip into that era? What reason could he have had for doing that? If Professor Legge had known him, why had he tried to disguise the fact? Come to think of it, how could he be sure he was not actually a citizen of the late twenty-third century who had somehow been displaced into the late twenty-fourth century? Had he been running from the law in the twenty-third century, too, and been forced to flee into the future? What crime had he committed? Was he—unbearable thought—really a confirmed molester of small children, as the cinema manageress had stated?

The practical side of Peace’s nature suddenly made him aware that he was wasting his time in futile speculation, and that his primary requirements were clothing, money and an accurate fix on his position in time. He opened several closet doors and was scarcely able to believe his luck when he found, hanging on a rusted nail, a once-white coat of the type favored by laboratory workers. It was much too short, but a full search of the room’s storage spaces yielded no further treasures. He moved upstairs and while touring the empty living rooms discovered a pair of fluffy bedroom slippers which, judging by their size, could once have belonged to Legge’s daughter. They were on the verge of disintegrating with extreme age, but fitted him quite well and gave his feet some measure of protection. The complete ensemble was, Peace felt, somewhat lacking elegance, but it was possible that if the building had not acquired the reputation of being haunted the local urchins would have stripped it bare, and he would have been left in a similar condition.

Reminded of the method by which small boys traditionally supplemented their incomes, Peace thought of the miscellaneous scraps of hardware languishing in the dust of the laboratory. One of the items had been a bunsen burner which, for all he knew, might have acquired the status of a semi-antique since it was last in use. He rushed back to the big laboratory, spread out his newspaper and collected on it a heap of copper coils and small pieces of electronic junk. The bunsen burner had a solid, well-crafted feel to it and, although it was not in the same class as a nineteenth-century brass microscope, Peace could imagine a trendy collector getting quite excited over it.

He wrapped his plunder up in a bundle and went out of the laboratory and down the stairs to street level. After a brief struggle with a rusty shootbolt, he opened the door and stepped out into a cool purple twilight. The alley was deserted, but the sound of traffic told him the business life of the city was still in full spate, which meant the season was either spring or autumn, and that the time was late in the afternoon. He turned to the right, away from the street where he had seen the Oscars, and headed for the opposite side of the block.

On reaching the corner he peered out cautiously and was relieved to note that the passing vehicles looked very much as he remembered them—an indication that he had not jumped to a distant era of the future. The lighted store windows looked reassuringly normal, as did the pedestrians who hurried by Peace without sparing him a glance. Emboldened, he joined the flow of people and began searching for a likely antique shop. His progress was impeded by the shuffling gait he had to adopt to make the fluffy mules stay on his feet, and to his horror a playful breeze kept lifting the hem of his lightweight coat, forcing him to stop every now and again to tuck the garment between his legs.

Doubled over, clutching his parcel, unable to raise his feet or separate his knees, Peace was uncomfortably aware that he looked like a skulking transvestite Quasimodo—a sight which, even among the most blase city-dwellers, was bound to excite comment.

As he had feared, men and women began to stop to watch him pass by. He tried grinning at them to create the impression he was a harmless idiot, but within a short time he was being followed by a knot of interested spectators. The nightmarish feeling intensified as he realized the police were bound to become involved sooner or later. He was preparing to stand up straight and make a run for it, regardless of the amount of exposure involved, when he noticed a sign a few doors further along which said: R. J. PENNYCOOK-Antique Dealer. Filled with relief, he scuttled towards the discreet-looking establishment, darted inside and slammed the door behind him. He leaned against it, breathing heavily, feeling like a fox which had just been delivered from a pack of hounds.

“If you don’t get out of here immediately,” said a cold-eyed young man, from behind a glass counter, “I’ll send for the police.”

“You can’t do that to me,” Peace gasped, shaking his head.

“I’d like to know why not.” The young man picked up a subetheric whistle and raised it to his lips.

Peace glanced around him and his heart sank as he saw he had taken refuge in a shop which catered for the extreme top end of the market, the sort of place where Ming vases are thrown in free with the really expensive purchases. Suddenly his corroded bunsen burner seemed to have lost its cachet, but he could think of no other course than to brazen the matter out and play for time.

“For the simple reason, Mr. Pennycook,” he said impressively, advancing to the counter, “that I’ve got something to sell, something whose value you may not appreciate at first glance, but the like of which may come your way only once in a lifetime.” He set his parcel on the counter and spread it open, revealing what—even to his eyes—looked like a shovelful of scrap metal. Even the bunsen burner, pride of the collection, had separated into its constituent parts.

Pennycook looked down at the miscellany. The faint trace of colour that had been in his cheeks promptly disappeared, and within the space of a second his expression changed from one of disdain—through incredulity, joy and greed—to a look of respectful wariness. “Is this yours to sell?”

“Of course.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Just picked it up.” Peace, who had been watching the play of emotion on the dealer’s face, began to wonder if he had stumbled on to a craze for old bunsen burners which would guarantee him enough money for a second-hand suit. “There could be more where that came from,” he added encouragingly, tapping the side of his nose.

“I’ll give you a thousand for it,” Pennycook said briskly. “No questions asked.”

“A thousand!” Peace began scanning the small mound of salvage, trying to see each grubby piece with the sort of unbiased eye which could identify hidden riches.

“All right, two thousand—but that’s my top offer. Is it a deal?”

Peace swallowed with some difficulty. “It’s a deal.”

The young man took two large and colourful banknotes from a drawer and handed them to Peace. He then carefully gathered up the bunsen burner and other items and dropped them into a waste disposer. There was a flash of greenish atomic fire as the objects ceased to exist.

“What are you doing?” Peace said, shocked at the casual destruction of what he had begun to see as an art treasure.

“We don’t need them any more,” Pennycook said. “It was a good idea to wrap the paper round some old junk—the old stealing of wheelbarrows trick, the old purloined letter ploy—but you could have got it dirty.” He smoothed the newspaper out with reverent hands, examined it closely and looked up at Peace with a shocked expression. “If I didn’t know better, I’d almost think somebody had been eating a porkpie off this.”

“Never!” Peace said numbly.

“I suppose you’re right. Nobody in his right mind would desecrate a mint, laser-imprimed, Waldo-folded 2292 newspaper.” Pennycook gave Peace a conspiratorial glance. “It’s a long time since I’ve seen a specimen as good as this—it’s almost as if you’d got hold of an extroverter and gone back for it.”

“But that sort of thing is illegal,” Peace said, winking in an effort to pass himself off as a useful source of contraband. The mentality of the dedicated collector was foreign to him, but—now that he finally understood the situation—he was determined to take every advantage it offered. “Listen, Mr. Pennycook, do you…”

“Call me Reggie, please.”

“Okay, Reggie—I’m Warren—do you think we could go into your office and talk? I feel a bit awkward standing around with practically no clothes on.” Acutely conscious of the thinness of his legs, Peace endured a head-to-foot perusal of his body.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that—I have to be very discreet, you know,” Pennycook said. “How did you lose your clothes?”

“Well…” Peace was stumped for a suitable reply. “You know how it is.”

Penny cook’s brow cleared. “I get it! Say no more, Warren.”

“I won’t,” Peace assured him.

“Her husband came home unexpectedly and you had to run for it, you randy old jack-rabbit.”

Pennycook gave Peace an amiable punch on the shoulder. “I don’t mind telling you, Warren, when you came in here dressed like that, and reeking of that awful rose perfume, I thought you were…”

“How dare you!”

“It’s all right—now that I know you better I can tell you’re a bit of a stud.”

Peace was nodding his agreement when a disturbing new thought crossed his mind. He could divine within himself no interest whatsoever in the opposite sex, which seemed curious in the case of a healthy young man who had had no physical gratification in over a month. I’ve been too tired, he decided, pushing aside memories of how all his comrades in the Legion—despite exhaustion and malnutrition—had spent their scant leisure planning the orgies of the next leave period. Frowning, and more than a little subdued, he followed Pennycook into an office at the rear of the premises.

“Have you any idea how I could get some clothes?” he said. “I don’t mind what it costs.”

Pennycook nodded. “The Ten Monk Tailors is a few doors along the block. I could ask somebody to bring you a suit and some other things.”

“Ten monits! That’s not bad.”

“It’ll be more like a hundred—inflation, you know.” Pennycook turned away with a humorous glance at Peace’s bare legs. “You really are a randy old jack-rabbit, Warren.”

“Don’t keep saying that,” Peace replied irritably, not wishing to be reminded of the vast new areas of unspeakable sin which might lie in his past. He glanced around the office and his attention was caught by an electronic calendar which announced the date as 6 September 2386. The red-glowing figures blurred in his vision and came back into sharp focus as he suddenly grasped their significance. If the calendar was accurate, it meant that the time machine—in one of the damping oscillations about which Professor Legge had spoken—had dropped him off at a point two months before he had joined the Space Legion.

A weakness developed in Peace’s knees as, with a thrill of almost superstitious awe, he realized that his mysterious former self was alive in some other part of the galaxy at that very moment, no doubt busily adding to the mountain of guilt which would eventually drive him to the Legion’s recruiting office and the memory eraser. The concept, inured to shock though he was, threw Peace into a mental spin.

“I’ll call the tailors now,” Pennycook said, sitting down at his telephone. “Fix you up in no time.”

“Thanks,” Peace said abstractedly. “By the way, is your calendar right?”

“Why? Don’t you know what day it is?”

“It’s not that.” Peace strove to orient himself in the present. “I’ve been travelling a lot and I’m losing track of the time zones.”

“We use a compatible local calendar to match the Aspatrian seasons,” Pennycook said. “If you want the date on Earth it’s … let me see … the eighth of November.”

Peace sat down abruptly, his legs giving way altogether as it came to him that—simply by lying in wait outside the Legion recruiting station in Porterburg, Earth, in two days’ time—he would be able to meet the one person in the universe who could answer all his questions.