Timegates

by Jack Dann

  "Now, in western South America," said Abelardo, "North American corporations are disliked far less for their vices than for their virtues. Bribery, favoritism, we can understand these things, we live with them. But an absolute insistence that one must arrive in one's office day after day at one invariable hour and that frequent prolonged telephone conversations from one's office to one's home and family is unfavored, this is against our conception of personal and domestic usement," Abelardo explained.

  He assured Fred Hopkins that the Regent Isabella's greatest error, "though she made several," was in having married a Frenchman. "The Frankish temperament is not the Latin temperament," Abelardo declared.

  Fred's food eventually arrived; Abelardo informed him that although individual enterprise and planned economy were all very well in their own ways, "one ignores the law of supply and demand at peril. I have been often in businesses, so I know, you see," said Abelardo.

  Abelardo did not indeed wear eyeglasses with one dark or opaque lens, but one of his eyes was artificial. He had gold in his smile—that is, in his teeth—and his white coverall was much washed but never much ironed. By and by, with polite words and thanks for the pleasure of Fred's company, Abelardo vanished into the kitchen; when Fred strolled up for his bill, he was informed it had already been paid. This rather surprised Fred. So did the fact, conveyed to him by the clock, that the noon rush was over. Had been over.

  "Abelardo seems like—Abelardo is a very nice guy."

  Rudolfo's face, hands, and body made brief but persuasive signal that it went without saying that Abelardo was indeed a very nice guy. "But I don't know how he stays in business," said Rudolfo, picking up a pile of dishes and walking them off to the kitchen.

  Fred had no reason to remain to discuss this, as it was an unknown to him how anybody stayed in business. Merely he was well aware how week after week the price of paints and brushes and canvases went up, up, up, while the price of his artwork stayed the same, same, same. Well, his agent, though wrong, was right. No one to blame but himself; he could have stayed in advertising, he might be an account executive by now. Or—Walking along The Street, he felt a wry smile accompany memory of another of Abelardo's comments: "Advertisage is like courtship, always involve some measure of deceit."

  This made him quickstep a bit back to the studio to get in some more painting, for—he felt—tonight might be a good one for what one might call courtship; "exploitation," some would doubtless call it: though why? If ladies ("women!") did not like to come back to his loft studio and see his painting, why did they do so? And if they did not genuinely desire to remain for a while of varying length, who could make them? Did any one of them really desire to admire his art, was there no pretense on the part of any of them? Why was he not the exploited one? You women are all alike, you only have one thing on your mind, all you think of is your own pleasure . . . Oh well. Hell. Back to work.—It was true that you could not sleep with an old building, but then they never argued with you, either. And as for "some measure of deceit," boy did that work both ways! Two weeks before, he'd come upon a harmonious and almost untouched, though tiny, commercial block in an area in between the factories and the farms, as yet undestroyed by the people curiously called "developers"; he'd taken lots of color snaps of it from all angles, and he wanted to do at least two large paintings, maybe two small ones as well. The date, 1895, was up there in front. The front was false, but in the harmony was truth.

  A day that found him just a bit tired of the items staple in breakfast found him ordering a cup of the soup du jour for starters. "How you like the soup?"—Rudolfo.

  Fred gave his head a silent shake. How. It had gone down without exiting dismay. "Truthful with you. Had better, had worse. Hm. What was it? Well, I was thinking of something else. Uh—chicken vegetable with rice? Right? Right. Yours or Campbell's?"

  Neither.

  "Half mine, half Abelardo's."

  "I beg your pardon."

  But Rudolfo had never heard the rude English story about the pint of half-and-half, neither did Fred tell it to him. Rudolfo said, "I make a stock with the bones after making chickens sandwiches and I mix it with this." He produced a large, a very large can, pushed it over to Fred. The label said. FULL CHICKEN RICHNESS Chicken-Type Soup.

  "What-haht?" asked Fred, half-laughing. He read on. Ingredients: Water, Other Poultry and Poultry Parts, Dehydrated Vegetables, Chickens and Chicken Parts, seasoning . . . the list dribbled off into the usual list of chemicals. The label also said, Canned for Restaurant and Institutional Usement.

  "Too big for a family," Rudolfo observed. "Well, not bad, I think, too. Help me keep the price down. Every little bit help, you know."

  "Oh. Sure. No, not bad. But I wonder about that label," Rudolfo shrugged about that label. The Government, he said, wasn't going to worry about some little chico outfit way down from the outskirt of town. Fred chuckled at the bland non-identification of "Other Poultry"—Rudolfo said that turkey was still cheaper than chicken—"But I don't put it down, `chicken soup,' I put it down, `soup du jour'; anybody ask, I say, `Oh, you know, chicken and rice and vegetable and, oh, stuff like that; try it, you don't like it I don't charge you.' Fair enough?—Yes," he expanded. "Abelardo, he is no businessman. He is a filosofo. His mind is always in the skies. I tell him, I could use more soup—twice, maybe even three times as many cans. What he cares. `Ai! Supply and demand!' he says. Then he tells me about the old Dutch explorers, things like that—Hey! I ever tell you about the time he make his own automobile? ("Abelar-do did?") Sure! Abelardo did. He took a part from one car, a part from another, he takes parts not even from cars, I don't know what they from—"

  Fred thought of Don Eliseo and the more perfect tortilla making-and-baking machine. "—well, it work! Finally! Yes! It start off, v000m! like a rocket! Sixty-three mile an hour! But oh boy when he try to slow it down! It stop! He start it again. Sixty-three mile an hour! No other rate of speed, well, what can you do with such a car? So he forget about it and he invent something else, who knows what; then he got into the soup business.—Yes, sir! You ready to order?" Rudolfo moved on.

  So did Fred. The paintings of the buildings 1895 were set aside for a while so that he could take a lot of pictures of a turn-of-the-century family home scheduled for destruction real soon. This Site Will be Improved With a Modern Office Building, what the hell did they mean by Improved? Alice came up and looked at the sketches of the family home, and at finished work. "I like them," she said. "I like you." She stayed. Everything fine. Then, one day, there was the other key on the table. On the note: There is nothing wrong, it said. Just time to go now. Love. No name. Fred sighed. Went on painting.

  One morning late there was Abelardo in the Bunne. He nodded, smiled a small smile. By and by, some coffee down, Fred said, "Say, where do you buy your chickens?" Abelardo, ready to inform, though not yet ready to talk, took a card from his wallet.

  E. J. Binder Prime Poultry Farm

  also

  Game Birds Dressed To Order

  1330 Valley Rd by the Big Oak

  While Fred was still reading this, Abelardo passed him over another card, this one for the Full Chicken Richness Canned Soup Company. "You must visit me," he said. "Most time I am home."

  Fred hadn't really cared where the chickens were bought, but now the devil entered into him. First he told Abelardo the story about the man who sold rabbit pie. Asked, wasn't there anyway maybe some horsemeat in the rabbit pie, said it was fifty-fifty: one rabbit, one horse. Abelardo reflected, then issued another small smile, a rather more painful one. Fred asked, "What about the turkey-meat in your chicken-type soup? I mean, uh, rather, the `Other Poultry Parts?"

  Abelardo squinted. "Only the breast," he said. "The rest are good enough.—For the soup, I mean. The rest, I sell to some mink ranchers."

  "How's business?"

  Abelardo shrugged. He looked a bit peaked. "Supply," he said. "Demand," he said. Then he sighed, stirred, rose. "You must visit me. Any time. Ple
ase," he said.

  Abelardo wasn't there in the La Bunne Burger next late morning, but someone else was. Miles Marton, call him The Last of the Old-Time Land Agents, call him something less nice: there he was. "Been waiting," Miles Marton said. "Remember time I toll you bout of stage-coach buildin? You never came. It comin down tomorrow. Ranch houses. Want to take its pitcher? Last chance, today. Make me a nice little paintin of it, price is right, I buy it. Bye now."

  Down Fred went. Heartbreaking to think its weathered timbers, its mellowed red brick chimney and stone fireplace, were coming down; but Fred Hopkins was very glad he'd had the favor of a notice. Coming down, too, the huge trees with the guinea-fowl in them. Lots of photographs. Be a good painting. At least one. Driving back, lo! a sign saying E.J. BINDER PRIME POULTRY FARM; absolutely by a big oak. Still, Fred probably wouldn't have stopped if there hadn't been someone by the gate. Binder, maybe. Sure enough. Binder. "Say, do you know a South American named Abelardo?"

  No problem. "Sure I do. Used to be a pretty good customer, too. Buy oh I forget how many chickens a week. Don't buy many nowdays. He send you here? Be glad to oblige you." Binder was an oldish man, highly sun-speckled.

  "You supply his turkeys and turkey-parts, too?" The devil still inside Fred Hopkins.

  Old Binder snorted, " `Turkeys,' no we don't handle turkeys, no sir, why chickens are enough trouble, cost of feeding going up, and—No, `guinea-fowl,' no we never did. Just chickens and of course your cornish."

  Still civil, E.J. Binder gave vague directions toward what he believed, he said, was the general location of Mr. Abelardo's place. Fred didn't find it right off, but he found it. As no one appeared in response to his calling and honking, he got out and knocked. Nothing. Pues, "My house is your house," okay: in he went through the first door. Well, it wasn't a large cannery, but it was a cannery. Fred started talking to himself; solitary artists often do. "Way I figure it, Abelardo," he said, "is that you have been operating with that `small measure of deceit in advertising,' as you so aptly put it. I think that in your own naive way you have believed that so long as you called the product `Chicken-Type Soup' and included some chicken, well, it was all right. Okay, your guilty secret is safe with me; where are you?" The place was immaculate, except for. Except for a pile of . . . well . . . shit . . . right in the middle of an aisle. It was as neat as a pile of shit can be. Chicken-shits? Pigeon-poops? Turkey-trots? Quien sabe?

  At the end of the aisle was another door and behind that door was a small apartment and in a large chair in the small apartment sprawled Abelardo, dead drunk on mescal, muzhikgrade vodka, and sneaky pete . . . according to the evidence. Alcoholism is not an especially Latin American trait? Who said the poor guy was an alcoholic? Maybe this was the first time he'd ever been stewed in his life. Maybe the eternally perplexing matter of supply and demand had finally unmanned him.

  Maybe.

  At the other end of that room was another door and behind that other door was another room. And in that other room was . . .

  ... something else. . . .

  That other room was partly crammed with an insane assortment of machinery and allied equipment, compared to which Don Eliseo's more perfect make-and-bake tortilla engine, with its affinities to the perpetual motion invention of one's choice, was simplicity. The thing stood naked for Fred's eyes, but his eyes told him very little: wires snaked all around, that much he could say. There was a not-quiteclick, a large television screen flickered on. No. Whatever it was at the room's end, sitting flush to the floor with a low, chicken-wire fence around it, it was not a television, not even if Abelardo had started from scratch as though there had been no television before. The quality of the "image" was entirely different, for one thing; and the color, for another, was wrong ... and wrong in the way that no TV color he had ever seen had been wrong. He reached to touch the screen, there was no "screen," it was as through his hand met a surface of unyielding gelatin. The non-screen, well, what the hell, call it a screen, was rather large, but not gigantically so. He was looking at a savannah somewhere, and among the trees were palms and he could not identify the others. A surf pounded not far off, but he could not hear it. There was no sound. He saw birds flying in and out of the trees. Looking back, he saw something else. A trail of broken bread through the room, right up to the, mmm, screen. A silent breeze now and then rifled grass, and something moved in the grass to one side. He stepped back, slightly. What the hell could it mean? Then the something which was in the grass to one side stepped, stiff-legged, into full view, and there was another odd, small sound as the thing—it was a bird—lurched through the screen and began to gobble bread. Hopkins watched, dry-mouthed. Crumb by crumb it ate. Then there was no more bread. It doddled up to the low fence, doddled back. It approached the screen, it brushed the screen, there was a Rube Goldberg series of motions in the external equipment, a sheet of chicken wire slid noisily down to the floor. The bird had been trapped.

  Fred got down and peered into the past till his eyes and neck grew sore, but he could not see one more bird like it. He began to laugh and cry simultaneously. Then he stood up. "Inevitable," he croaked, throwing out his arms. "Inevitable! Demand exceeded supply!"

  The bird looked up at him with imbecile, incurious eyes, and opened its incredible beak. "Doh-do," it said, halfway between a gobble and a coo. "Doh-do. Doh-do."

  ANOTHER STORY

  Ursula K. Le Guín

  Ursula K. Le Guin is probably one of the best-known and most universally respected SF writers in the world today. Her famous novel The Left Hand of Darkness may have been the most influential SF novel of its decade and shows every sign of becoming one of the enduring classics of the genre—even ignoring the rest of Le Guin's work, the impact of this one novel alone on future SF and future SF writers would be incalculably strong. (Her 1968 fantasy novel, A Wizard of Earthsea, would be almost as influential on future generations of High Fantasy writers.) The Left Hand of Darkness won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, as did Le Guin's monumental novel The Dispossessed a few years later. Her novel, Tehanu, won her another Nebula in 1990, and she has also won three other Hugo Awards and a Nebula Award for her short fiction, as well as the National Book Award for Children's Literature for her novel, The Farthest Shore, part of her acclaimed Earthsea trilogy. Her other novels include Planet of Exile, The Lathe of Heaven, City of Illusions, Rocannon's World, The Beginning Place, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, Tehanu, Searoad, and the controversial multimedia novel, Always Coming Home. She has had six collections: The Wind's Twelve Quarters, Orsinian Tales, The Compass Rose, Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences, A Fisherman of the Inland Sea, and her most recent book, Four Ways to Forgiveness.

  Here she returns to the star-spanning, Hainish-settled interstellar community known as the Ekumen, the same fictional universe that provided the background for her most famous novels, for a strange, powerful, and somberly lyrical study of how sometimes even the longest and most difficult journeys serve only to bring you back to where you started from...

  To the stabiles of the Ekumen on Hain, and to Gvonesh, Director of the Churten Field Laboratories at Ve Port:

  From Tiokunan'n Hideo, Farmholder of the Second Sedoretu of Udan, Derdan'nad, Oket, on O.

  I shall make my report as if I told a story, this having been the tradition for some time now. You may, however, wonder why a fanner on the planet O is reporting to you as if he were a Mobile of the Ekumen. My story will explain that. But it does not explain itself. Story is our only boat for sailing on the river of time, but in the great rapids and the winding shallows, no boat is safe.

  So: once upon a time when I was twenty-one years old I left my home and came on the NAFAL ship Terraces of Darranda to study at the Ekumenical Schools on Hain.

  The distance between Hain and my home world is just over four lightyears, and there has been traffic between O and the Hainish system for twenty centuries. Even before the Nearly As Fast As Light drive, when ships spent a hundred years of planetary
time instead of four to make the crossing, there were people who would give up their old life to come to a new world. Sometimes they returned; not often. There were tales of such sad returns to a world that had forgotten the voyager. I knew also from my mother a very old story called "The Fisherman of the Inland Sea," which came from her home world, Terra. The life of a ki'O child is full of stories, but of all I heard told by her and my othermother and my fathers and grandparents and uncles and aunts and teachers, that one was my favorite. Perhaps I liked it so well because my mother told it with deep feeling, though very plainly, and always in the same words (and I would not let her change the words if she ever tried to).

  The story tells of a poor fisherman, Urashima, who went out daily in his boat alone on the quiet sea that lay between his home island and the mainland. He was a beautiful young man with long, black hair, and the daughter of the king of the sea saw him as he leaned over the side of the boat and she gazed up to see the floating shadow cross the wide circle of the sky.

  Rising from the waves, she begged him to come to her palace under the sea with him. At first he refused, saying, "My children wait for me at home." But how could he resist the sea-king's daughter? "One night," he said. She drew him down with her under the water, and they spent a night of love in her green palace, served by strange undersea beings. Urashima came to love her dearly, and maybe he stayed more than one night only. But at last he said, "My dear, I must go. My children wait for me at home."

  "If you go, you go forever," she said.

  "I will come back," he promised.

  She shook her head. She grieved, but did not plead with him. "Take this with you," she said, giving him a little box, wonderfully carved, and sealed shut. "Do not open it, Urashima."

  So he went up onto the land, and ran up the shore to his village, to his house: but the garden was a wilderness, the windows were blank, the roof had fallen in. People came and went among the familiar houses of the village, but he did not know a single face. "Where are my children?" he cried. An old woman stopped and spoke to him: "What is your trouble, young stranger?"