The Time Hoppers

by Robert Silverberg

  Quellen erupted into the upper air, after having risen level upon level upon level from the mythical catacomb that was the lair of Peter Kloofman. He staggered out into the street and planted himself solidly, feet on the pavement, head upturned to the towers far above. He saw the lacy connecting bridges, the gleaming cones atop the buildings, the faint patch of blue light beyond the summits.

  I don’t have much time, Quellen thought.

  He was numb with shock after his interview with Kloofman. In retrospect he had no idea how he had carried off such an enterprise. To muscle his way into the lair of a Class One administrator, to stand there bluntly making demands and having Kloofman accede to them, to pile fraud upon fraud and carry his bluffs home – it was not real. It couldn’t be. It had to be some sniffer-palace fantasy, some dream of power that would fade with the ebbing of the drug from his brain.

  Yet the buildings were real. The sky was real. The pavements were real. And the interview with Kloofman had been real, too. He had won. He had been invited to accept Class Two status. He had compelled Kloofman to retreat.

  Quellen knew that he had not won a thing.

  He had done his audacious manoeuvre with reasonable aplomb, but it had been a fool’s manoeuvre, and he saw that more clearly now than he had an hour before. Any man could be proud of having had the nerve to confront Kloofman like that, but, having done it, Quellen knew that he had gained no real safety, only the temporary illusion of triumph. It would be necessary to activate the alternate plan that he had been nurturing for some hours. His mind had prepared itself for this eventuality, and he knew what he had to do, though he was not at all sure that he would have time to do it.

  He was in mortal danger. He had to act fast.

  Kloofman had not fooled him with his smiles, his words of praise, his promise of an uptwitch to High Government status, his apparent delight in Quellen’s audacity. Kloofman was frightened that something might happen to Mortensen that could topple his own power, yes, but Kloofman could not be pushed around as easily as it seemed.

  He’ll get Lanoy and Mortensen from me, Quellen knew, and then he’ll destroy me. I should have realized that from the start. How could I hope to outsmart Kloofman?

  But he did not regret having made the attempt. A man is not a worm; he can stand up on his legs, he can fight for his position. He can try. Quellen had tried. He had done something foolhardy to the point of absurdity, and he had carried it off with honour, even if his success was probably unreal.

  Now, though, he had to hasten to protect himself against Kloofman’s wrath. He had at least a little time in which to operate. The euphoria of his meeting with Kloofman had worn off, and he was thinking clearly and rationally.

  He reached the headquarters of the Secretariat of Crime and immediately gave orders for Lanoy to be taken from the custody tank once again. The slyster was brought to Quellen’s office. He looked moody and downcast.

  ‘You’re going to be sorry for this, Quellen,’ Lanoy said bitterly. ‘I wasn’t joking when I said Brogg had keyed all his telltales over to me. I can have the news of your African place in the hands of the High Government in – ’

  ‘You don’t need to inform on me,’ said Quellen, ‘I’m letting you go.’

  Lanoy was startled. ‘But you said – ’

  ‘That was earlier. I’m releasing you and wiping out as much as I can of the records involving you.’

  ‘So you gave in after all, Quellen? You knew you couldn’t take the risk that I’d expose you?’

  ‘On the contrary, I haven’t given in. I told the High Government about my African place myself. I let Kloofman himself know, in person. No sense wasting time talking to underlings. So your telltales won’t be telling anything that isn’t already known.’

  ‘You can’t ask me to believe that, Quellen!’

  ‘It’s the truth, though. And therefore the price for my letting you go has changed. It isn’t your silence any more. It’s your services.’

  Lanoy’s eyes widened. ‘What have you been up to?’

  ‘Plenty. But there’s no time for me to explain it now. I’ll get you safely out of this building. You’ve got to get back to your lab on your own power. I’ll join you there in about an hour.’ Quellen shook his head. ‘Not that I think you’ll stay free for very long, Lanoy. Kloofman’s hungry for your machine. He wants to use it to send political prisoners back. And to raise public revenues. He’ll solve his unemployment problem by shooting the prolets back to 500,000 BC and letting them get eaten by tigers. You’ll be picked up again, I’m sure of it. But at least it won’t be my doing.’

  He escorted Lanoy from the building. The little slyster gave Quellen a baffled look as he scuttled away towards the quickboat ramp.

  ‘I’ll be seeing you in a little while,’ Quellen said.

  He boarded a quickboat himself, a local, and headed for his apartment to perform one last chore. Had Kloofman taken steps against him yet? Doubtless. They were having frantic conferences in the chambers of the High Government. It wouldn’t be long now, though, and Quellen would be safe.

  He had come to understand a great many things. Why Kloofman wanted the machine so badly, for one thing: as a tool to extend his own power over the world. Unscrupulous, it was. And I nearly helped him get it.

  Then, too, Quellen saw why the recorded hoppers had all come from 2486-91. It didn’t mean that the backward flow had been cut off next year, as he had assumed. It simply meant that control of the machine had passed then from Lanoy to Kloofman, and that all hoppers sent back after 2491 were hurled by the new process, which had a greater range, thrown back so far that they could be no possible threat to Kloofman’s regime. And would not, of course, show up in any historical records. Quellen shuddered. He wanted no part of a world in which the government held such powers.

  He entered his apartment and activated the stat. The glow of theta force enveloped him. Quellen stepped through, and emerged in his African cottage.

  ‘Mortensen?’ he shouted. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Down here!’

  Quellen peered over the edge of the porch. Mortensen was fishing. Stripped to the waist, his pale skin partly red and partly tan, he waved to Quellen affably.

  ‘Come on,’ Quellen said. ‘You’re going home!’

  ‘I’d rather stay, thank you. I like it here.’

  ‘Nonsense. You’ve got a date to hop.’

  ‘Why hop if I can hang out here?’ Mortensen asked reasonably. ‘I don’t understand why you brought me here, but I don’t feel like leaving now.’

  Quellen had no time to argue. It did not fit into his plan to keep Mortensen from making his 4 May hop. Quellen had no vested interest in disturbing the recorded past, and Mortensen’s value as a hostage would shortly be zero. It was conceivable that Mortensen’s failure to hop on schedule would jeopardize Quellen’s own continued existence, if he happened to be a descendant of the hopped Mortensen. Why take the risk? Mortensen would have to hop.

  ‘Come,’ Quellen said.

  ‘No.’

  Sighing, Quellen moved in and once again anaesthetized the man. He hauled the limp Mortensen into the cottage and thrust him through the stat, following a moment later himself. Mortensen lay sprawled out on the floor of Quellen’s apartment. In a short while he’d awaken and try to comprehend all that had been happening to him, and perhaps he’d attempt to get back to Africa. But by then he would have registered on the Appalachia televector field, and Kloofman’s men would be on their way to pick him up. Kloofman would make sure that Mortensen hopped on schedule.

  Quellen left the apartment for the last time. He ascended the flyramp and waited for the quickboat. He knew the route to Lanoy’s place, thanks to Brogg.

  He would rather have triumphed over Kloofman than have taken this route. But he had been in a trap, and a man in a trap must seek the sane path to freedom, not the most glamorous one. There was irony in the decision, of course: the man assigned to police the hopper problem becoming a hop
per himself. Yet there was a kind of inevitability, Quellen saw, right from the start, that made him one with Norm Pomrath and Brogg and the others. He had begun to make his hop the day he secured the African retreat for himself. Now he was merely completing the logical course of action.

  It was late afternoon by the time Quellen arrived. The sun was dipping to the horizon, and colours danced on the polluted lake. Lanoy was waiting for him.

  ‘Everything’s ready, Quellen,’ he said.

  ‘Good. Can I rely on you to be honest?’

  ‘You let me go, didn’t you? There’s honour even among slysters,’ said Lanoy. ‘You’re sure you want to do this?’

  ‘Positive. I can’t stay here. I’m anathema to Kloofman now. I gave him an uncomfortable ten minutes, and he’ll make me pay for it if he ever catches me. But he won’t catch me. Thanks to you.’

  ‘Come inside,’ Lanoy said. ‘Damn you, I never thought I’d be helping you this way.’

  ‘If you’re smart,’ said Quellen, ‘you’ll go the same way. Kloofman’s bound to catch you sooner or later. It can’t be avoided.’

  ‘I’ll take my chances, Quellen.’ Lanoy smiled. ‘When the time comes, I’ll look Kloofman in the eye and see if I can’t strike a deal with him. Come along. The machine’s waiting.’

  Sixteen

  It was done.

  There was a swirling and a twisting, and Quellen felt as if he had been turned inside out. He was floating on a purple cloud high above some indistinct terrain, and he was falling.

  He dropped, heels over head, and landed in a scrambled heap on a long green carpet. He lay there for a moment or two, breathless, clutching at the carpet for stability in an uncertain world.

  A handful of the carpet tore off in his hands. Quellen looked at it in puzzlement.

  Grass.

  Living grass. Strands of it in his clenched fingers.

  The clean smell of the air hit him next, almost as a physical shock. It was painful to pull air like that down into his lungs. It was like inhaling in a room with full oxy turned on. But this was outdoors. The air in Africa was not like that, because it held an overstratum of residues from the more densely populated regions of the world.

  Quellen gathered himself together and stood up. The grassy carpet extended in all directions, and in front of him there was a great thicket of trees. Quellen looked. A small grey bird came out on the overhanging branch of the nearest tree and began to chirp, unafraid, at Quellen.

  He wondered how long Kloofman’s minions would search for him before they concluded that he had hopped. Koll would be apoplectic. And would Kloofman cope with Lanoy? He hoped not; Kloofman was a sinister unreal monster, and Lanoy, despite his slyster habits, had a sense of honour.

  Quellen began to move towards the forest. He would have to locate a likely stream and build some sort of house next to it, he decided. Improvised architecture – he’d make out, though his first attempts might not be very impressive. It would be his house, at any rate.

  He felt no guilt at having taken this route. He had been a misfit, thrown into a world he could only hate and which could only ensnarl him. Norm Pomrath had taken this route. Brogg had. Now it was Quellen’s turn. At least, before he had left, he had made a valiant try to defend himself against that world. It had been madness to think that he could match guile with the High Government. But he had shaken Kloofman, at least for a few minutes, and that was a worthy accomplishment. He had shown he was a man. Now valour’s part dictated a quick exit, before Kloofman’s superior might crushed him.

  Two deer came bounding out of the forest. Quellen stood aghast. He had never seen land animals of that size, not even in Africa. The African mammals had long since been penned in preserves. Were these creatures dangerous? They looked gentle. They skipped off across the plain.

  Quellen’s heart began to throb as he filled his lungs with the sweet air. Marok, Koll, Spanner, Brogg. Kloofman. Helaine. Judith. They began to fade and blur. Social regurgitation. Quickboats. Good old Lanoy, he thought. He’d kept his word after all. Back to an unspoiled continent.

  The world is mine, Quellen thought.

  A tall redskinned man emerged from the forest and leaned against a tree, regarding Quellen gravely. He was dressed in a leather belt, a pair of sandals, and nothing else. The redskinned man studied Quellen for a moment and then raised his arm in a gesture Quellen could not fail to interpret. A warm feeling of comradeship glowed in Quellen. This man welcomed him. This man did not fear him.

  Palm upraised, smiling at last, Quellen went forward to meet him.

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen