The Whenabouts of Burr (14 page)

Ves drove the sedan slowly down the street. “I find that hard to believe,” he said. “I mean, I do believe you, but I find it hard to accept that it's true. One thinks of the past as immutable, even if you can travel through it. The shooting of your grandfather paradox, and like that.”

Somewhere, off in the distance, a machine gun sounded its staccato cough as Ves finished speaking. The sharp cracking sounds of several rifles came in immediate reply.

“You must understand that this is not time travel in any sense of the word,” Tatiana Petrovna said, calmly ignoring the distant sounds. “Your past—the past of your particular world—is dead and gone, irretrievable as far as I know. This world is not behind your world in time, but somewhere off to the left, or right of it. Watch out for that tank!”

Ves swerved just in time to miss a tank that came lumbering around the corner on their right. The tank's turret swiveled around, the cannon seeking them as they passed. Ves flipped the steering wheel over hard left, bounced the car up on the far sidewalk, and then turned sharply right again until he reached the corner, where he spun the car around to the left and was out of sight around the corner building before he drove the car back down off the curb.

“Good driving,” the Countess said firmly. The glint of excitement showed in her eyes, but otherwise she was completely unruffled. “But why did you go to the left? The tank's gun was turning to the right, so you passed right under it to reach the curb.”

“The tank came from the right,” Ves said, “so I knew I wanted to turn left and avoid meeting any of his friends. I thought it would be a good idea to get over to the left side of the road as quickly as possible.”

“Good thinking,” the Countess approved.

“That was a Sherman tank,” Ves said. “I studied old armor and ordnance for a while.”

“So?” Tatiana Petrovna asked.

“So it's one of ours. I mean it's American.”

“So? I understand they're good shots, the Americans.”

“I know what you're saying,” Ves said. “But it does feel funny to have to run away from your own people.”

Tatiana Petrovna nodded. “It does,” she said. “I also have had to do that.”

Ves turned downtown on Amsterdam Avenue, proceeding slowly, cautiously, and with his lights out. The dawn was beginning to light up the city, and now Ves could get a better idea of what the buildings he was passing looked like. The area was mostly five-and six-story brownstones, with a few storefronts and a couple of older, twelve-to fifteen-story apartment buildings. Every window up to the third floor in each building was boarded up. The storefront windows were taped and sandbagged, except for the ones which weren't there. Many of the building fronts bore the pockmarks of rifle or machine gun fire; a few showed the larger craterings of aircraft cannon, and an occasional pile of nibble showed the effects of artillery or bombs. Major damage was rare, but most of the buildings showed signs that people were trying to kill other people.

Tatiana Petrovna's hand clutched Ves's shoulder. “Pull over and stop,” she said. “Quickly!”

Ves pulled the car over to the curb and set the brake. Two blocks ahead a pair of halftrack troop carriers ground their way around the corner, blocking the road. Men in field gray uniforms and bucket helmets swarmed off the backs, lugging heavy machine guns, steel boxes of ammunition, and sandbags, to commence construction of a barricade. They worked with the sure, instinctive knowledge of ants building an anthill, and the barricade took form with impressive speed as Ves and the Countess watched.

“The automobile engine is still on,” the Countess said. “If one of the soldiers comes this way, he will probably hear it and investigate.”

“I can stall it out,” Ves told her, “and I will if I have to. But I can only start it again by going under the hood, which would make me sort of conspicuous. Let's sit here for a few minutes and see what happens.”

As they watched a third halftrack joined the other two, and the soldiers began to fan out and occupy the buildings flanking the corner. Selected windows on the upper floors were knocked out, presumably to give marksmen stationed there greater fields of fire. Then a truck came up and offloaded a steel-and-cement jigsaw puzzle that the men began erecting from sidewalk to sidewalk across the facing street, in front of the machine guns.

“Instant tank trap,” Ves said.

“I think we had better get away from here,” Tatiana Petrovna said. “If the Germans do not shoot us, they will soon cement us in.”

“You have something there, Countess,” Ves admitted. “We need one sudden, definitive act to get out of here before they have an opportunity to get any of those guns trained on us.” He stared reflectively at the street. “A U-turn, I think, and then a quick right at the end of the block—”

His planning was suddenly interrupted by a high-pitched mechanical scream, and the undercarriage of a propeller-driven fighter aircraft appeared in the sky over them. It made a shallow dive toward the Nazi-infested corner. A rhythmic roar of explosions blotted out all other sounds, and hundreds of thirty-caliber steel-jacketed bullets created a moving line of destruction down the middle of the street. The asphalt was chewed into little bits, leaving a residue of black, powdery smoke; a fire hydrant erupted, sending a plume of water five stories into the air; a car exploded with a belch and a sheet of red flame; and a score of German soldiers, frozen into a tableau position for the split-second of remaining life, scattered like leaves in the bullet-storm and lay broken in grotesque postures about the barricade. Then the plane was past, climbing beyond the roofs and into the tranquil sky from which it had come.

The half-track vehicles sat there stolidly, looking whole amidst the wreckage, but a small, fine pillar of black smoke rose from the center one. The one on the left was canted at a strange angle, as though it were a model placed carelessly on a miniature street. An officer in a high peaked hat had run from his protecting doorway and was emptying his handgun at the retreating aircraft. Aside from the sharp yap of his pistol and the roar of escaping water, the street was curiously quiet in the immediate aftermath of the strafing attack.

“There is an ancient Chinese curse about living in interesting times,” Ves said. “I wonder how they would have felt about traveling through interesting times.” He backed the car up and then executed a slow, precise U-turn. Nothing impeded him except dust.

“I hope the It in the Empire State Building is still accessible,” Tatiana Petrovna said. “It will cause us much inconvenience if it is not”

“I just hope the Empire State Building is still there,” Ves said. “If it's still standing, we'll find a way inside; you have my word.”

Twenty minutes more of creeping, darting, and waiting in their stolen Henry, and they arrived at their objective.

“Well,” Ves said, pulling over to the curb and stalling the car. “Where is the gadget?”

“Upstairs,” the Countess told him. “Way upstairs, in the observation tower.”

“I should have guessed,” Ves said. “Let's hope the elevators are running.” They left the car and raced across the deserted sidewalk to the Fifth Avenue entrance of the building. One of the doors was unlocked. They went in, cutting their pace to a fast walk, and went down the long arcade toward the elevator banks. “Is this the last It before we arrive at Prime Time?” Ves asked.

“One more,” Tatiana Petrovna said. “But less of a problem to get to.”

“Why isn't there one that just goes straight through?” Ves asked.

“The Translator can only go from one time to another when its base exists in both times,” the Countess said. “Haven't you noticed?”

“Noticed what?” Ves asked.

“The similarity of the locations on both sides of the transfer,” she said.

“Ah!” Ves said. “Yes, of course. Now that you point it out.”

“State your business!” a young, earnest voice called. And then, as an afterthought: “Halt!” Ves and the Countess froze in place, and a young corporal with an ancient Springfield rifle stepped out of a doorway, pointing the weapon at them in an embarrassed manner. “Advance and be recognized,” he said.

“Good going, Corporal, keep alert,” Ves said. He took a couple of steps forward and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “This is top-security work for the Manhattan project. Top Secret, classified with the British Most Secret. You'll want the password, of course. The civilian project Class-A Password for the day is Eiderdown. What's your countersign?”

“Eiderdown?” the corporal asked, sounding unhappy. “That's not the code-word I was given.” He shifted the rifle as though uncertain whether he should point the rifle at Ves, or hand it to him. He compromised on a sort of port arms.

“It's
not
the code-word?” Ves asked in amazement. “You are cleared for top-secret, aren't you?”

The boy shook his head. “I don't think so, Sir.”

“You're
not
? Then what are you doing
here
?” Ves's amazement was complete.

Tatiana Petrovna touched Ves's arm. “We are, after all, under attack,” she pointed out. “Things get mixed up—confused. It's not the corporal's fault, surely.” She turned to the corporal. “What password were you given?”

“Central Park,” the corporal said. “And the countersign is supposed to be Bronx Zoo.”

“There,” the Countess said, with an explanatory gesture to Ves. “Central Park! Surely you see... ”

“Of course,” Ves agreed. “Listen, son: use your codeword for all of your people. You know—Army and all that. But if anyone else comes in with the password ‘Eiderdown', remember that your countersign is ‘Pillow'. I'll see that the next change of guard has all five classes of passwords.”

“Five?” the corporal asked. By now, his rifle was pointed at the mural of a wood-nymph with a jackhammer on the corridor ceiling, and he was holding it loosely by the stock.

“Five,” Ves reaffirmed. “It's a complicated war. Thank you, corporal. Stay on guard, there are some German troops about. Are the elevators working?”

“Yes, sir,” the corporal said. “Far as I know. Operator's down in the basement; just ring for her.”

“Very good, thank you.” And they left the guard, and proceeded to the elevator banks. “I forgot all about elevator operators,” Ves said. “Where I come from, you do that yourself.”

“A true democracy,” Tatiana Petrovna said.

The elevator came for them after one ring and a great deal of patience. “Where to, gents?” the girl asked.

“All the way up,” Ves said.

“Okay,” the girl said cheerfully, closing the door behind them and starting the elevator with that stomach-dropping surge so characteristic of the building. “But you'll have to change at the hundred and second; that's as high as I go.”

When they got off at the 102nd floor, the tower elevator wasn't working, so they had to walk up the last three flights to the observation deck.

It was broad daylight when they emerged on the deck, eighty stories above the fog. Most of the land below them was shrouded in ground fog and low-lying clouds. To the east and south pillars of black smoke rose in several different places, but no details could be made out.

“Come,” Tatiana said. She led Ves around the tower to a certain spot on the outer wall facing downtown, and pressed a concealed switch. The panel flopped open.

“A second,” she said, groping in the panel for the right button. Then she closed the panel.

“Well?” Ves said.

“It's done,” she replied.

“Where in the name of Minos did you come from?” a voice behind them demanded. They turned.

A man in a blue toga with gold trim, and a woman in a Grecian-style gown with her left breast bared were standing arm in arm, staring at Ves and the Countess. The man held a blue-steel automatic pistol pointed steadily at Ves's belt buckle. It wasn't cold anymore, Ves noticed.

Tatiana Petrovna took Ves's arm. “This is the wrong place,” she murmured in his ear.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Intercontinental Coach ran out of track on the Jersey side—or what would have been the Jersey side—of the Hudson. A flat-bed barge with a steam-driven paddle wheel took them from the Hoboken docks to the Battery at the foot of Manhattan. There were a clump of neat-looking brick houses around the Battery, an expanse of cleared land behind the houses, and then a dense forest covering all of uptown Manhattan. “So this is your colony,” Swift said, stepping off onto the dock and gazing around at the neat, clean, geometrically precise brick walls. Even the dirt street seemed to have been scrubbed.

“Gentleman farmers,” Hamilton said. “Jefferson would approve. Of course, we don't use slave labor.”

“What then,” Nate Swift asked doubtfully, “Indian workers toiling for their gods?”

“Don't be ridiculous, sir,” Hamilton said scornfully. “Admittedly we used Indian labor to construct the great Intercontinental track; but the various tribes and nations involved considered that as an apparatus of the gods, and a device which would benefit them as they do use it for trade and commerce. But to ask them to grub around in the dirt growing maize for their gods would quickly disenchant them, I'm afraid. We should have to resort to ungodlike remedies to keep them with their hands to the plow.”

“Don't tell me you do the work yourselves,” Swift said.

“Have you never heard of indentured service, sir?” Hamilton asked. “It is a fair and honorable way of establishing yourself in a new country if you have no capital of your own.” Hamilton led the way across the road to
Poor Richard's Tavern
as they spoke, and he ushered Swift through the stout oak door.

“That's a sort of slavery on the time-payment plan, isn't it?” Swift said.

“No,” Hamilton said, and let it go at that while they sat down at the long wooden bench nearest the door and were brought two great pewter mugs of ale by a girl who could have been no older than fourteen. Then he turned to Swift and studied him closely, as though he were trying to memorize his face. “We've travelled together for over a week,” he said, “and I confess I don't know you. You speak sense mostly, but you appear to have some strange Jacobin ideas. If a man has nothing, why should he not work to acquire something? Should it merely be handed to him? By whom? And from whom should it be taken away, and why?”

“I just don't believe that you can buy a man's life for a period of years,” Swift said stubbornly.

“Not his life, sir,” Hamilton said, slapping his hand down on the bench wood, “not his life. Merely his work. And they don't have to sell. We have no press gangs operating to supply us with forced labor. There are many people in many alternate Americas who would be delighted to have a chance to come here to Georgeland. Our recruiting is not a problem. On the contrary, we have a careful program to restrain growth and keep it in hand. We hope to learn from your mistakes.”

“Georgeland?” Swift asked: “Georgeland?”

Hamilton shrugged, in what Swift had come to recognize as a characteristic gesture. “We could do no less,” he said. “Although, I'm afraid, General Washington will never come to hear about it. The first rule for an invitation here is when there's serious trouble in your home time; and in every time where we've located General Washington still alive, he's doing quite well.” He drained his ale and wiped his mouth on the lace cuff of his shirt. “Believe me, Mr. Swift, those who serve under indenture here are much better off than the millions who call themselves freemen in other places which are named the United States of America.”

“I don't deny that,” Swift said. “And I admit I'm favorably impressed both with your colony and your rhetoric. Very neat and clean, the both of them.”

“Hem, sir,” Hamilton said, “we shall not, at the moment, discuss politics or philosophy any further. Drink up your ale.”

“We agree, sir,” Swift said, taking a hearty swallow from his mug. The ale was thick and rich, and tasted strongly of the grain it was brewed from. It could have made a pleasing meal of itself, but Swift resisted the temptation to make it his lunch. “Any food available?” he asked Hamilton.

“It comes,” Hamilton said. And sure enough a few minutes later it came: a giant platter filled with assorted cheeses, meats, breads, and pickled green things. And behind it came the landlord, a short, active man of middle years who looked very familiar to Swift.

“Alex,” the landlord said, extending a large, calloused palm. “Welcome back. What news?”

“The recruiting goes well,” Hamilton said. “The needed supplies are purchased or ordered. No news of Burr.”

The landlord ritualistically wiped his hands on his apron. “Aaron Burr is your own particular bête noire, and none of the colony's affair,” he told Hamilton. “Personally, I always liked the man.”

Hamilton shrugged. “I'm not trying to incite you against Burr,” he said, “but merely to keep track of him.”

The landlord nodded and sat down opposite Hamilton and Swift. “True wisdom,” he said, “consists of knowing your own motives. And what is this young man? I don't believe we've met.”

Swift extended his hand “Nathan Hale Swift,” he said. “My pleasure.”

“Named after one of us, I see,” the landlord said, taking the proffered hand. “Like George Washington Carver. A fine tradition. My name is Benjamin Franklin. Unfortunately, not Benjamin Franklin anything, just Benjamin Franklin.”

‘“Ah!” Swift said, shaking the calloused hand. He couldn't think of anything more to say that wouldn't sound silly, so he said nothing. The silence stretched toward the ridiculous.

“You have a curious reluctance to cease shaking hands,” Franklin observed. “Is it, perhaps, your only form of exercise?”

“No, no,” Swift said, jerking his hand back. “Sorry.”

“I once invented a machine for shaking hands,” Franklin said. “Thought it would be of inestimable use to politicians. None of them ever used it, though. Said it removed the personal touch. I told them that was its major value. Removing the personal touch of politicians is always a desirable goal in and of itself. Don't you agree, Alex?”

“I must leave now,” Hamilton said, standing up, “and check on some matters of immediacy. I shall return. Please take care of Mr. Swift while I am gone. He has quite an interesting problem that he would love to share with you and seek your advice on. I have no doubt but that you'll give it.” He smiled grimly, like a headmaster showing his students that he does have a sense of humor. “I leave you in each other's capable hands.” And with that he strode out of the house.

“A problem, eh?” Franklin said, standing up and removing his apron. “A problem… or was Hamilton jesting?”

“No, sir,” Swift said. “I have a problem. I don't know if you can help me, but I do have a problem.”

“Excellent!” Franklin said. “Nothing keeps the brain stirred up and active like a good problem. Animal, vegetable, or mineral? Or perhaps spiritual? Here, let's go into my office and discuss it over a cigar. It's good Connecticut broadleaf.”

“No, thank you,” Swift said, as Franklin led the way through the rear of the common room to a spacious office, containing one of the finest, largest Colonial desks Swift had ever seen. “I don't smoke cigars.”

“You don't, eh?” Franklin said, selecting one from his humidor and carefully cutting off the end with a golden cigar clipper. “Can't say I blame you.” He took a box of blue-tip kitchen matches from a drawer and used one to light the chosen cigar. “Vile habit. Vile. Dangerous, too, I understand. Would you like some bitterroot tea, or perhaps some sarsaparilla? What is your problem?”

Swift gazed intently across the desk. “I'm searching for the Constitution of the United States.”

“An intellectual sort of pursuit, I'm sure,” Franklin said, leaning back in his wooden chair with his hands folded across his ample middle and tilting his head sideways to stare at Swift through the upper half of his bifocals. “Does your search go to the original document, or are you searching in the writings of Voltaire, Plato, Lao Tzu, and Hamhotep the Scribe?”

“It isn't the ideas I'm searching for,” Swift told him, “but the original document. In my world someone has stolen the Constitution itself: parchment, ink, and all.” Franklin's mouth fell open and his eyes crossed as he shifted his gaze to his thumbs, which were circling each other above his laced fingers. He remained in this posture of contemplation for a silent minute. Then he said, “Fascinating! The whole thing, eh?”

“Yes sir. Out of a sealed glass case with a helium atmosphere.”

“Helium, eh. From the sun, you know. Helios is Greek for the sun. Gas, is it?” Franklin stood up. “Of course, in one sense it's nothing to get excited about. I mean, no one can steal the Constitution. It is in the hearts and minds of all Americans. Besides, it must be written in a million textbooks. But in another sense, it is a dastardly thing to do. Wonder how it was done. Case was unopened?”

“As far as anyone could tell,” Swift said. “The internal helium atmosphere was undisturbed, at any rate.”

Franklin stared off into space through the top half of his bifocals. “Can't do it, you know. Not as described. Some element is missing. The impossible is merely the possible improperly described. Tell me about it in detail.” He sat back down and transferred his stare to his guest Swift told Franklin the story of the substitution in detail, chronologically; and Franklin listened silently, with his eyes closed and his lips moving slowly in and out.

“Aha!” Franklin said at one point, “the essential detail!” But as Swift was talking about Burr's signature, and it was unreasonable to assume that Burr had committed the theft Swift was not sure which was the detail.

“And so,” Swift said, completing his tale, “I now not only have to find the Constitution, but I have to locate my companion, Ves Romero. He is probably in trouble and might be anywhere by now. Or anywhen.”

“The two of you will, of necessity, come together again,” Franklin pronounced. “As you are both seeking the same thing, you will both terminate at the same location. I use the word ‘terminate' in its less final meaning.”

“I hope,” Swift said. “Besides, we're only going to terminate at the same place if we have some way of figuring out where that is.”

“No problem,” Franklin said. “I don't know who took your, eh, particular Constitution, or why. But I believe I can tell you how it was done, and where to look for it.”

“You can?” Swift said, amazed. “From what I've told you?”

“Simple deduction, my boy,” Franklin said. “And if I can do it so easily, surely someone from whom your companion seeks aid will be able to similarly guide him. Perhaps the necessary effort will be greater, but the result will be the same.” He pushed himself to his feet and maneuvered across the floor. “Would you like some spring sausage?” he asked. “It's my own recipe: an adaptation of one given me for
petite saucisse
in a small inn to the north of Paris.” He tugged a great bell pull by the side of the door and, without waiting for a reply, yelled, “Maryanne, child, bring some sausage and cheese on a platter, and some ale in a pitcher. Bring them to the workroom.” Then he beckoned to Swift. “Come along,” he said. “It's on the other side of the house. There are some things I'd like to show you.”

“Certainly,” Swift said, following along behind Franklin. “But how was it done, and where should I look?”

“Patience,” Franklin said. “He who is patient today need not wait for, eh, dumpty um—something that rhymes with ‘day', however vaguely, would be nice. Need not wait for hair to gray… to find a lay… to stack the hay… I'd best let that one simmer a while longer, it clearly isn't done yet At any rate, in a minute I'll show you how it was done. Probably done. Almost certainly done. Don't see how else they could have done it. And
that
should show you where to look.”

Franklin's workroom was a large, detached room at the rear of the house, which bore the constructional signs of having once been a stable. In an incredible state of disarray, it bore family resemblance to a science-fair project, an alchemist's workshop, and a rummage sale. A giant Franklin stove dominated the center of the room; its stovepipe doing three right-angle turns as it climbed and finally disappeared through a hole in one corner of the roof. Three large worktables formed a tight triangle with the stove as their center. The tables were so full of a number of things that a fourth, temporary table had been set up by the door to work at.

“What on Earth is that?” Swift asked, pointing to a contraption on the right-hand table that looked like a cross between an organ and a sewing machine.

“An invention of my own,” Franklin said proudly. “It's a steam-driven typewriter. Changeable fonts. It'll come in very handy when I get it perfected. I am the publisher of the colony's only newspaper. A weekly.
Poor Richard's Thursday-Evening Post
.”

“Don't you need a typesetter, rather than a typewriter, for a newspaper?” Swift asked. “Not that I know much about journalism.”

“Don't feel bashful,” Franklin said. “Writing is the only field where everyone, practiced in the craft or not, feels that he's an expert by birthright. That goes for both the technical and the creative ends of the profession.” He walked over to the contraption and prodded it a few times. “I'd give you a demonstration, but it takes half an hour to get the steam up.

“To answer your question, which I was not ignoring, I have developed a variant of the silk-screening process to produce my journal. The letters will be impressed directly onto a specially-treated screen, which will then be put in a frame, and ink rolled through the reverse when the frame is applied to the paper.” Franklin used his hands to create what he was talking about as he described the process. Swift could almost see the press emerge out of the air as Franklin's rapidly-moving hands circumscribed it.