Platinum Pohl: The Collected Best Stories

by Frederik Pohl

  So I started the interview with a chip on my shoulder, and his first question made it worse. He plunged right in: “When you’re pounding out those sci-roms of yours, do you make any effort to keep in touch with scientific reality? Do you know, for instance, that the Olympians have stopped transmitting?”

  I scowled at him, regardless of the cameras. “Science-adventure romances are about scientific reality. And the Olympians haven’t ‘stopped,’ as you put it. There’s just been a technical hitch of some kind, probably caused by radio interference from our own Sun. As I said in my earlier romance, The Radio Gods, electromagnetic impulses are susceptible to—”

  He cut me off. “It’s been—” he glanced at his watch “—twenty-nine hours since they stopped. That doesn’t sound like just a technical hitch.”

  “Of course it is. There’s no reason for them to ‘stop.’ We’ve already demonstrated to them that we’re truly civilized, first because we’re technological, second because we don’t fight wars anymore—that was cleared up in the first year. As I said in my roman, The Radio Gods—”

  He gave me a pained look, then turned and winked into the camera. “You can’t keep a hack from plugging his books, can you?” he remarked humorously. “But it looks like he doesn’t want to use that wild imagination unless he gets paid for it. All I’m asking him for is a guess at why the Olympians don’t want to talk to us anymore, and all he gives me is commercials.”

  As though there were any other reason to do interviews! “Look here,” I said sharply, “if you can’t be courteous when you speak to a citizen I’m not prepared to go on with this conversation at all.”

  “So be it, pal,” he said, icy cold. He turned to the technical crew. “Stop the cameras,” he ordered. “We’re going back to the studio. This is a waste of time.” And we parted on terms of mutual dislike, and once again I had done something that my editor would have been glad to kill me for.

  That night at dinner, Sam was no comfort. “He’s an unpleasant man, sure,” he told me, “but the trouble is, I’m afraid he’s right.”

  “They’ve really stopped?”

  Sam shrugged. “We’re not in line with the Sun anymore, so that’s definitely not the reason. Damn. I was hoping it would be.”

  “I’m sorry about that, Uncle Sam,” Rachel said gently. She was wearing a simple white robe, Hannish silk by the look of it, with no decorations at all. It really looked good on her. I didn’t think there was anything under it except for some very well formed female flesh.

  “I’m sorry, too,” he grumbled. His concerns didn’t affect his appetite, though. He was ladling in the first course—a sort of chicken soup, with bits of a kind of pastry floating in it—and, for that matter, so was I. Whatever Rachel’s faults might be, she had a good cook. It was plain home cooking, none of your partridge-in-a-rabbit-inside-a-boar kind of thing, but well prepared and expertly served by her butler, Basilius. “Anyway,” Sam said, mopping up the last of the broth, “I’ve figured it out.”

  “Why the Olympians stopped?” I asked, to encourage him to go on with the revelation.

  “No, no! I mean about your romance, Julie. My alternate world idea. If you don’t want to write about a different future, how about a different now?”

  I didn’t get a chance to ask him what he was talking about, because Rachel beat me to it. “There’s only one ‘now,’ Sam, dear,” she pointed out. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

  Sam groaned. “Not you, too, honey,” he complained. “I’m talking about a new kind of sci-rom.”

  “I don’t read many sci-roms,” she apologized, in the tone that isn’t an apology at all.

  He ignored that. “You’re a historian, aren’t you?” She didn’t bother to confirm it; obviously, it was the thing she was that shaped her life. “So what if history had gone a different way?”

  He beamed at us as happily as though he had said something that made sense. Neither of us beamed back. Rachel pointed out the flaw in his remark. “It didn’t, though,” she told him.

  “I said suppose! This isn’t the only possible ‘now,’ it’s just the one that happened to occur! There could have been a million different ones. Look at all the events in the past that could have gone a different way. Suppose Annius Publius hadn’t discovered the Western Continents in City Year 1820. Suppose Caesar Publius Terminus hadn’t decreed the development of a space program in 2122. Don’t you see what I’m driving at? What kind of a world would we be living in now if those things hadn’t happened?”

  Rachel opened her mouth to speak, but she was saved by the butler. He appeared in the doorway with a look of silent appeal. When she excused herself to see what was needed in the kitchen, that left it up to me. “I never wrote anything like that, Sam,” I told him. “I don’t know anybody else who did, either.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m driving at! It would be something completely new in sci-roms. Don’t you want to pioneer a whole new kind of story?”

  Out of the wisdom of experience, I told him, “Pioneers don’t make any money, Sam.” He scowled at me. “You could write it yourself,” I suggested.

  That just changed the annoyance to gloom. “I wish I could. But until this business with the Olympians is cleared up I’m not going to have much time for sci-roms. No, it’s up to you, Julie.”

  Then Rachel came back in, looking pleased with herself, followed by Basilius bearing a huge silver platter containing the main course.

  Sam cheered up at once. So did I. The main dish was a whole roasted baby kid, and I realized that the reason Rachel had been called into the kitchen was so that she could weave a garland of flowers around its tiny baby horn buds herself. The maidservant followed with a pitcher of wine, replenishing all our goblets. All in all, we were busy enough eating to stop any conversation but compliments on the food.

  Then Sam looked at his watch. “Great dinner, Rachel,” he told his niece, “but I’ve got to get back. What about it?”

  “What about what?” she asked.

  “About helping poor Julie with some historical turning points he can use in a story?”

  He hadn’t listened to a word I’d said. I didn’t have to say so, because Rachel was looking concerned. She said apologetically, “I don’t know anything about those periods you were talking about—Publius Terminus and so on. My specialty is the immediate post-Augustan period, when the Senate came back to power.”

  “Fine,” he said, pleased with himself and showing it. “That’s as good a period as any. Think how different things might be now if some little event then had gone in a different way. Say, if Augustus hadn’t married the Lady Livia and adopted her son Drusus to succeed him.” He turned to me, encouraging me to take fire from his spark of inspiration. “I’m sure you see the possibilities, Julie! Tell you what you should do. The night’s young yet; take Rachel out dancing or something; have a few drinks; listen to her talk. What’s wrong with that? You two young people ought to be having fun, anyway!”

  That was definitely the most intelligent thing intelligent Sam had said in days.

  So I thought, anyway, and Rachel was a good enough niece to heed her uncle’s advice. Because I was a stranger in town, I had to let her pick the place. After the first couple she mentioned I realized that she was tactfully trying to spare my pocketbook. I couldn’t allow that. After all, a night on the town with Rachel was probably cheaper, and anyway a whole lot more interesting, than the cost of an inn and meals.

  We settled on a place right on the harborside, out toward the breakwater. It was a revolving nightclub on top of an inn built along the style of one of the old Pyramids. As the room slowly turned we saw the lights of the city of Alexandria, the shipping in the harbor, then the wide sea itself, its gentle waves reflecting starlight.

  I was prepared to forget the whole idea of “alternate worlds,” but Rachel was more dutiful than that. After the first dance, she said, “I think I can help you. There was something that happened in Drusus’s reign—”<
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  “Do we have to talk about that?” I asked, refilling her glass.

  “But Uncle Sam said we should. I thought you wanted to try a new kind of sci-rom.”

  “No, that’s your uncle that wants that. See, there’s a bit of a problem here. It’s true that editors are always begging for something new and different, but if you’re dumb enough to try to give it to them they don’t recognize it. When they ask for ‘different,’ what they mean is something right down the good old ‘different’ groove.”

  “I think,” she informed me, with the certainty of an oracle and a lot less confusion of style, “that when my uncle has an idea, it’s usually a good one.” I didn’t want to argue with her; I didn’t even disagree, at least usually. I let her talk. “You see,” she said, “my specialty is the transfer of power throughout early Roman history. What I’m studying right now is the Judaean Diaspora, after Drusus’s reign. You know what happened then, I suppose?”

  Actually, I did—hazily. “That was the year of the Judaean rebellion, wasn’t it?”

  She nodded. She looked very pretty when she nodded, her fair hair moving gracefully and her eyes sparkling. “You see, that was a great tragedy for the Judaeans, and, just as my uncle said, it needn’t have happened. If Procurator Tiberius had lived, it wouldn’t.”

  I coughed. “I’m not sure I know who Tiberius was,” I said apologetically.

  “He was the Procurator of Judaea, and a very good one. He was just and fair. He was the brother of the Emperor Drusus—the one my uncle was talking about, Livia’s son, the adopted heir of Caesar Augustus. The one who restored the power of the Senate after Augustus had appropriated most of it for himself. Anyway, Tiberius was the best governor the Judaeans ever had, just as Drusus was the best emperor. Tiberius died just a year before the rebellion—ate some spoiled figs, they say, although it might have been his wife that did it—she was Julia, the daughter of Augustus by his first wife—”

  I signaled distress. “I’m getting a little confused by all these names,” I admitted.

  “Well, the important one to remember is Tiberius, and you know who he was. If he had lived the rebellion probably wouldn’t have happened. Then there wouldn’t have been a Diaspora.”

  “I see,” I said. “Would you like another dance?”

  She frowned at me, then smiled. “Maybe that’s not such an interesting subject—unless you’re a Judaean, anyway,” she said. “All right, let’s dance.”

  That was the best idea yet. It gave me a chance to confirm with my fingers what my eyes, ears, and nose had already told me; this was a very attractive young woman. She had insisted on changing, but fortunately the new gown was as soft and clinging as the old, and the palms of my hands rejoiced in the tactile pleasures of her back and arm. I whispered, “I’m sorry if I sound stupid. I really don’t know a whole lot about early history—you know, the first thousand years or so after the Founding of the City.”

  She didn’t bother to point out that she did. She moved with me to the music, very enjoyably, then she straightened up. “I’ve got a different idea,” she announced. “Let’s go back to the booth.” And she was already telling it to me as we left the dance floor: “Let’s talk about your own ancestor, Julius Caesar. He conquered Egypt, right here in Alexandria. But suppose the Egyptians had defeated him instead, as they very nearly did?”

  I was paying close attention now—obviously she had been interested enough in me to ask Sam some questions! “They couldn’t have,” I told her. “Julius never lost a war. Anyway—” I discovered to my surprise that I was beginning to take Sam’s nutty idea seriously “—that would be a really hard one to write, wouldn’t it? If the Legions had been defeated, it would have changed the whole world. Can you imagine a world that isn’t Roman?”

  She said sweetly, “No, but that’s more your job than mine, isn’t it?”

  I shook my head. “It’s too bizarre,” I complained. “I couldn’t make the readers believe it.”

  “You could try, Julius,” she told me. “You see, there’s an interesting possibility there. Drusus almost didn’t live to become Emperor. He was severely wounded in a war in Gaul, while Augustus was still alive. Tiberius—you remember Tiberius—”

  “Yes, yes, his brother. The one you like. The one he made Procurator of Judaea.”

  “That’s the one. Well, Tiberius rode day and night to bring Drusus the best doctors in Rome. He almost didn’t make it. They barely pulled Drusus through.”

  “Yes?” I said encouragingly. “And what then?”

  She looked uncertain. “Well, I don’t know what then.”

  I poured some more wine. “I guess I could figure out some kind of speculative idea,” I said, ruminating. “Especially if you would help me with some of the details. I suppose Tiberius would have become Emperor instead of Drusus. You say he was a good man; so probably he would have done more or less what Drusus did—restore the power of the Senate, after Augustus and my revered great-great Julius between them had pretty nearly put it out of business—”

  I stopped there, startled at my own words. It almost seemed that I was beginning to take Sam’s crazy idea seriously!

  On the other hand, that wasn’t all bad. It also seemed that Rachel was beginning to take me seriously.

  That was a good thought. It kept me cheerful through half a dozen more dances and at least another hour of history lessons from her pretty lips…right up until the time when, after we had gone back to her house, I tiptoed out of my room toward hers, and found her butler, Basilius, asleep on a rug across her doorway, with a great, thick club by his side.

  I didn’t sleep well that night.

  Partly it was glandular. My head knew that Rachel didn’t want me creeping into her bedroom, or else she wouldn’t have put the butler there in the way. But my glands weren’t happy with that news. They had soaked up the smell and sight and feel of her, and they were complaining about being thwarted.

  The worst part was waking up every hour or so to contemplate financial ruin.

  Being poor wasn’t so bad. Every writer has to learn how to be poor from time to time, between checks. It’s an annoyance, but not a catastrophe. You don’t get enslaved just for poverty.

  But I had been running up some pretty big bills. And you do get enslaved for debt.

  4 • The End of the Dream

  The next morning I woke up late and grouchy and had to take a three-wheeler to the Hall of the Senate-Inferior.

  It was slow going. As we approached, the traffic thickened even more. I could see the Legion forming for the ceremonial guard as the Pharaoh’s procession approached to open the ceremonies. The driver wouldn’t take me any closer than the outer square, and I had to wait there with all the tourists, while the Pharaoh dismounted from her royal litter.

  There was a soft, pleasured noise from the crowd, halfway between a giggle and a sigh. That was the spectacle the tourists had come to see. They pressed against the sheathed swords of the Legionaries while the Pharaoh, head bare, robe trailing on the ground, advanced on the shrines outside the Senate building. She sacrificed reverently and unhurriedly to them, while the tourists flashed their cameras at her, and I began to worry about the time. What if she ecumenically decided to visit all fifty shrines? But after doing Isis, Amon-Ra, and Mother Nile, she went inside to declare the Congress open. The Legionaries relaxed. The tourists began to flow back to their buses, snapping pictures of themselves now, and I followed the Pharaoh inside.

  She made a good, by which I mean short, opening address. The only thing wrong with it was that she was talking to mostly empty seats.

  The Hall of the Alexandrian Senate-Inferior holds two thousand people. There weren’t more than a hundred and fifty in it. Most of those were huddled in small groups in the aisles and at the back of the hall, and they were paying no attention at all to the Pharaoh. I think she saw that and shortened her speech. At one moment she was telling us how the scientific investigation of the outside universe was com
pletely in accord with the ancient traditions of Egypt—with hardly anyone listening—and at the next her voice had stopped without warning and she was handing her orb and scepter to her attendants. She proceeded regally across the stage and out the wings.

  The buzz of conversation hardly slackened. What they were talking about, of course, was the Olympians. Even when the Collegium-Presidor stepped forward and called for the first session to begin the hall didn’t fill. At least most of the scattered groups of people in the room sat down—though still in clumps, and still doing a lot of whispering to each other.

  Even the speakers didn’t seem very interested in what they were saying. The first one was an honorary Presidor-Emeritus from the southern highlands of Egypt, and he gave us a review of everything we knew about the Olympians.

  He read it as hurriedly as though he were dictating it to a scribe. It wasn’t very interesting. The trouble, of course, was that his paper had been prepared days earlier, while the Olympian transmissions were still flooding in and no one had any thought they might be interrupted. It just didn’t seem relevant anymore.

  What I like about going to science congresses isn’t so much the actual papers the speakers deliver—I can get that sort of information better from the journals in the library. It isn’t even the back-and-forth discussion that follows each paper, although that sometimes produces useful background bits. What I get the most out of is what I call “the sound of science”—the kind of shorthand language scientists use when they’re talking to each other about their own specialties. So I usually sit somewhere at the back of the hall, with as much space around me as I can manage, my tablet in my lap and my stylus in my hand, writing down bits of dialogue and figuring how to put them into my next sci-rom.

  There wasn’t much of that today. There wasn’t much discussion at all. One by one the speakers got up and read their papers, answered a couple of cursory questions with cursory replies and hurried off; and when each one finished he left and the audience got smaller, because, as I finally figured out, no one was there who wasn’t obligated to be.