The Whenabouts of Burr

by Michael Kurland

  MINISTRY OF PUBLIC SAFETY

  INTERNAL SECURITY

  NORTHEAST DIVISION

  PUBLIC SAFETY IS A PUBLIC TRUST

  All citizens subject to search beyond this point.

  The carriage pulled right up to the door, and One hopped down and opened the door. Ves got out and, flanked by One and Two, walked to the door. It was opened from the inside by a uniformed guard, who peered at them through a peephole before pulling the latch. Ves was led upstairs one flight to a small room with a number on the door, seated on a wooden bench, and left there.

  By twisting his neck, Ves managed to get the collar of his jacket between his teeth. He chewed steadily toward the pin holding the transmitter button. When he finally got hold of it, he mouthed, “Nate, Nate, this is Ves”, between his clenched teeth. Then he realized how silly that was: who else could it be? There was no answer. Well, the range of the tiny button transmitters was no more than a kilometer at best; Swift had been walking north, and he had been driven south. Ves gave up on chewing his collar and settled down to wait.

  They kept him waiting for quite a while. It would have bothered him if he weren’t quite familiar with the technique, having used it himself to break down suspects. The longer they wait, the more nervous they get, the more chance they have to think—and they can only think of their crime—the more eager they are to tell you about it; even if it’s only to deny that it ever happened. He had often found out about frauds his employer never suspected, by having someone he was questioning deny committing them.

  After what his interrogators thought was a sufficient pause, they had him brought into the office next to his waiting room. They had all the customs and style going for them, and showed signs of vast experience. The only thing missing was the bright light, but their technology wasn’t quite up to it.

  There were three of them in the room: one behind a giant desk to sneer at him, another one to loom over him, and one to sit quietly in a corner and be on his side: the “friend” he would eventually confess to, if the pressure didn’t break him first.

  They took the handcuffs off and emptied his pockets: wallet, keychain, coins, the remaining gold coin in its case, magnifying glass, vest-pocket microscope, felt-tip pen, small flip-top notebook, two-bladed penknife. The one behind the desk took the wallet, removed the papers from it one at a time, studied them closely, and then passed them around. They were very popular, almost every one eliciting at least a smile from each of the inquisitors. His driver’s license was quite popular, and brought forth a chuckle from the man behind the desk, while the man in the corner shook his head sadly and knowingly.

  Finally the man behind the desk looked up at Ves. “Sit down,” he ordered.

  “Thank you,” Ves said, sitting down.

  “You may call me Colonel Brown,” the man behind the desk said. “This is Captain Lewis and Captain Richardson,” he indicated the loomer and the corner sitter.

  “My name is Romero,” Ves said. “It’s good of you to see me like this. I’ll try not to waste too much of your time.”

  Colonel Brown looked vaguely puzzled; this was the wrong reaction. He continued, “Your master never stops trying, does he? And you people never can get anything right.”

  “Excuse me?” Ves asked.

  Colonel Brown chuckled mildly. “Oh, come now,” he said. “Do you take us for fools?”

  “On the contrary, Colonel Brown,” Ves said. “Would I have wanted to see you if I didn’t have a high regard for your intelligence?”

  “You wanted to—Lewis, come here!” He stood up abruptly and walked to the door, with Captain Lewis at his heels. Colonel Brown stalked through, and was about to slam the door when he paused and turned. “Ah, excuse us for a second.” The door closed softly behind him. Captain Richardson, left sitting in the corner, smiled and fidgeted, and didn’t try to make conversation. Ves practiced deep breathing exercises and thinking good thoughts to stay relaxed; any tenseness inside his body in the immediate future could only work against him, and he needed every edge he could get.

  About five minutes went by before the Colonel and Captain Lewis returned. They had formulated their plans and decided to attack. “What did you mean,” the Colonel demanded, “you wanted to see me? I sent for you, didn’t I?”

  Ves looked up mildly. “Then I suppose we wanted to see each other,” he said. “Didn’t your men tell you?”

  “Well,” the Colonel leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers together. “Let’s get to my questions first, then we’ll consider yours. I admit I’m curious. But now tell me: to whom do you report and who are your agents in New York?”

  “I think we’d better do this the other way around,” Ves said. “Your assumptions are based on a false premise.”

  Captain Lewis leaned forward and grabbed Ves by the collar. “The Colonel don’t like to be talked to that way,” he said.

  “You know, what gives you Russians away is always the same thing,” the Colonel said. “Lack of attention to detail. Let go of him, Captain.”

  “I’m Italian-American,” Ves said, smoothing his collar and leaning back in the chair.

  “What do you mean?” the Colonel asked. “Lombardy? Tuscany? Rome? Piedmont? You trying to tell me you owe allegiance to the Austrian Empire instead of the Russians? Give us a list of the Austrian agents working in the United States.”

  “You don’t understand,” Ves said.

  Captain Lewis grabbed his collar again. “Just answer the—ow!—what the hell is that?” He let go of the collar and thrust an injured finger into his mouth. “You’ve got a pin in your coat!” he said accusingly.

  “I’m sorry,” Ves said. “Here, let me…” He removed the pin and dropped it into his pocket. “You people seem to think I’m a Russian spy,” he said. “Some things never change. Although we’re bigger on the Chinese than the Russians right now.”

  “What’s that about China?” the Colonel demanded.

  “Listen,” Ves said. “I’m from somewhere else; another place, another time: somewhere quite different from here. To me, this is the past, only it isn’t because it’s different— changed. But I’m not a Russian, Lombardian, Chinese, Austrian, or Swiss. I’m a visitor from a different universe.”

  “With forged papers?” the Colonel asked, unimpressed.

  “They’re not forged,” Ves insisted.

  “These documents are not only false, they’re ludicrous,” the Colonel said. “That’s why we think you’re Russian; Tsar Nicholas is not a fiend for accuracy, and the Cheka tends to be very slipshod about English-language forgery. But we’re ready to believe you’re Austrian, if you want to admit you’re Austrian. Convince us that you’re Austrian.”

  “I don’t even speak Austrian—or Russian either, for that matter,” Ves said.

  “A negative is the hardest thing to prove,” the Colonel said.

  “I am from somewhere else,” Ves said. “I am a visitor to your world. Just passing through, you might say. I am not any sort of spy.”

  “What are you doing here?” the Colonel asked.

  “We seek a man from our world who is thought to have stolen something of great importance.”

  “ ‘We,’ ” the Colonel said. “You and your companion. We know of him. Where is he?”

  “I don’t know,” Ves said. “He was following the suspect.”

  “It would go easier with you if you’d talk,” Captain Richardson spoke up from the corner. “I’d like to help you.”

  “I’ve heard enough of this bull,” Captain Lewis said, giving his best imitation of a savage sneer. “Just leave me alone with him for a few minutes; I’ll find out everything he knows!”

  “I’m sure you could, Captain,” Colonel Brown said.

  “You looked at the documents in my wallet,” Ves said. “Did you notice the dates on them? Take a look at my drivers license—
the one with my picture on it—the date’s on top.”

  “You insist upon this ridiculous story?”

  “How do you explain the license?” Ves demanded.

  The Colonel stared at it for a long time, turning it over and over in his hand. “Forgery,” he said finally.

  “Why would anyone forge a non-existent document?” Ves asked. “None of those cards or papers correspond to any that you use here.”

  The Colonel nodded. “That’s just it,” he said. “If you were from the future, you’d be well supplied with genuine documents to copy; but if you were from Russia, then you’d have to improvise. This might all be a clever ruse,” he added, waving at the assorted papers. “A big lie to tell, if you’re questioned.”

  “What would be the point to that?” Ves asked.

  “Aha!” the Colonel said. “What indeed, that’s the question. And don’t think that we won’t find the answer. Now, what’s the purpose of those gold coins?”

  “Purpose?” Ves asked.

  “Don’t get wise,” Captain Lewis shouted, his mouth three inches from Ves’s ear. “Answer the Colonel!”

  “Who were you to distribute them to? How many more are there? What do the Burrites plan to do with them?”

  “I wasn’t distributing them to anyone in particular,” Ves said. “I was only using them for their gold value because they happened to be in my pocket. There are no more, as far as I know; and to the best of my knowledge, I’ve never met a Burrite.”

  The Colonel stood up, anger evident in the set of his chin, the flash of his eye, and the color of his ears. “I’ve had about enough of this,” he said, slapping his palm down on the desk with a resounding thwack! “There are certain questions I want answers to. We’ll play your little game after, if you like, but right now we’ll play mine. Captain Lewis, come outside for a moment.”

  Colonel Brown strode through the door, the captain at his heels. Captain Lewis turned around in the doorway.

  “I’ll be back,” he said, cracking his knuckles suggestively. “Be patient a minute longer, oh visitor from the future. I’ll be back—and we’ll talk.” With this gentle threat, he slammed the door.

  Ves sat there staring at the door. Captain Richardson stayed quietly in the corner. Now it comes, Ves thought. Rough and smooth. Lewis has threatened. Now Richardson will try to save me, and I’ll feel grateful and tell him all. I wish I could think of something clever to say: they obviously won’t believe the truth.

  “I’d like to help you,” Richardson said softly from his corner seat.

  Hahaha, Ves thought.

  “I think there’s something I can do, if you’ll help,” Richardson said.

  “What’s that?” Ves asked, playing along.

  “I think I can get you out of here,” Richardson said. He patted his jacket pocket. “Would you like a cigar? I’d offer you a cigarette, but they haven’t been invented here yet.”

  Ves looked at him for a minute, speechless. “You don’t say,” he said, finally. “I mean, what did you say?”

  “I’m Prime,” Captain Richardson told him. “I’m here on a mission for the Directory. What are you doing here—and why the ridiculous mix-up in the paperwork?”

  “It’s no mix-up,” Ves said. “That’s my real driver’s license, social security card and stuff. I’m from nineteen ninety-six. A nineteen ninety-six where the fourth President of the United States had been Madison, not Hamilton.”

  “Ah,” Captain Richardson said, “That nineteen ninety-six.” He chuckled softly.

  “What do you find so funny?” Ves demanded.

  “It’s just that you don’t understand the immensity of the random-space cycle. It’s infinite. And any slice of it for all practical purposes, is also infinite.”

  “What does that mean?” Ves asked, afraid he knew.

  “It means that there are an infinite number of times where the fourth president of the United States was James Madison. They are all sandwiched in between Hamilton and, I believe, a third term for Jefferson. Just as there are an infinite number of fractions sandwiched in between one-fourth and one-half.”

  “Does that mean you can’t get me back home?”

  “Oh, of course not. Luckily we can only reach certain of these infinite worlds; and though there are a great many of them, they are spread far enough apart in time to make them easily recognizable. Just keep track of what time it is in your home world.”

  “Fair enough. How are you going to get me out of here?”

  “If you’re not from Prime, I should just let you rot,” Captain Richardson said cheerfully. “It’ll take considerable trouble and effort to get you to an It. But, I suppose, it must be considered in its humanitarian aspect. I mean, to leave you in the hands of these barbarians…”

  “An It?” Ves interrupted.

  “Yes, yes. An It. An I.T. An Intertemporal Translator. As in: Translate, v, to bear, convey, or remove from one person, place, or condition to another. For example: ‘It was his opinion that when he died he would be instantly translated to Heaven, but for my part, I think the Devil read him better.’ And: Intertemporal, adj., between the times. For example: ‘Intertemporal night is a lonely place, but a place where a man can feel free. You don’t feel like part of—’ Why are you staring at me that way?”

  Ves shook his head. “I don’t know. Suddenly it all seemed too much. What’s going to happen?”

  “Only the dinosaurs know that,” Captain Richardson said. “Just follow my lead and I’ll take care of you. Someone will be in touch with you later. The password is, um, something from our common history would be nice. I have a sense of the fitness of things, a feeling of Kismet, of karma; and since the Universe so seldom goes along with human notions of what is predestined, we should encourage it in every way. You’re staring again. Do you find it strange to wish to encourage the Universe? But what else can we do? I, for one, would not like to attempt to discourage the Universe; it might decide to discourage me. Kismet! That’s the very word! Kismet it is, and I wish you good karma.”

  Ves shrugged, a shrug that came from his soul and his Trentino-Alto Adigean ancestors. “Much obliged,” he said.

  Captain Richardson glanced at the door and got busy. “Here,” he said, thrusting a cigar at Ves, “stick this in your mouth. Puff on it a bit. We’re supposed to be making friends, and I’m softening you up to talk. I do have my position here to consider, you know.” He struck a sulfurous match and applied the flame to the cigar tip. “If you’re the dumb sort of clod who inhales tobacco smoke, refrain from inhaling the first few drags of this. That match will cleanse your lungs out of your body.”

  “Tell me,” Ves said, “what do you do here? I mean, why are you here?”

  “Well,” Captain Richardson said. “I’m a temporalist; a sort of anthropologist-sociologist. I study primitive cultures by living and taking part in them. Someday we hope to be able to control our own by what we learn here.”

  “What have you learned?” Ves asked.

  “Well,” Captain Richardson puffed on his cigar. “Let me put it this way: the three guiding words of the temporalist philosophy, gained after two hundred years of doing this sort of thing, are: ‘leave it alone’. And it took us a hundred and fifty years to learn that. Some of us…” he paused and listened for a second …“Of course, I am your friend. You must understand that Colonel Brown has a job to do. If you help him, I’m sure he will help you. A new job, a new identity, somewhere where the Cheka can’t find you. Ah, Colonel—our friend here has agreed to talk. No need for Captain Lewis and his French Persuasion.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Nothing seemed to have changed, but suddenly the room smelled bad. The torches were now flickering and giving off an aura of thick black smoke. The perspective through the windows was different. Swift revised his first opinion, and decided that much had changed. “What h
appened?” he asked.

  “That’s almost as silly as ‘Where am I?’,” Alex: commented, closing the little hatch in the stone.

  “That was going to be my next question,” Swift assured him, climbing down from the stone slab. “Along with ‘what the hell is going on here’, ‘what do you think you’re doing’, and ‘why are those naked men with knives coming through the door’?” With the last question, Swift circled around the stone to keep its bulk between himself and the three naked men with knives who had just come through the door.

  “They are not naked,” Hamilton said indignantly. “They wear breechclouts and feather headdresses, the proper attire for persons in service here in Tehetiltotipec. I would certainly never allow any persons of mine to go around naked. Even the women wear proper dresses. Although I’ll admit that some of the natives back in the hills… Oh, well; civilization moves slowly in its progress.”

  “These Indians are in your service?” Swift asked, ceasing to crouch behind the stone slab.

  “Certainly,” Hamilton affirmed. “Well, ah, to be technical about it; actually they think I’m some sort of a god. They work much cheaper if they think you’re a god.”

  “Why do they think that?” Swift asked.

  “Well, you know, it’s because I told them I was, that’s why.” Hamilton looked embarrassed.

  “You told them you were a god?” Swift asked, the astonishment evident in his voice.

  “Yes. Well, I suppose I could have told them about Jehovah, Original Sin, Purgatory, the Elect, and all that; but I didn’t think it would do either of us much good. Since all of the Elect live in Boston, and this is on the other coast, I didn’t think they’d appreciate that particularly overmuch.”

  “You’re probably right,” Swift said. “The other coast?”

  “You’re a slow learner, aren’t you son,” Hamilton said kindly. “That’s right. This is the city of Tehetiltotipec. On other levels known as Mission Dolores, or Yerba Buena, or Drake’s Bay, or San Francisco. Come along with me now, and tell me why you’ve been following me.” They went out into the sunlight, and from the top of the ziggurat, which perched on a hill, highest of a series of hills, Nate Swift could see the city of Tehetiltotipec spread out beneath him. The sun, halfway down to the western sea, spread lengthening shadows over the small, closely-packed brick buildings and the narrow, twisting streets. Nob Hill? Swift wondered. He wasn’t sure enough of the basic shape of San Francisco Peninsula, without its tall downtown buildings, to be sure just where the great stepped pyramid had been built. Off to the north Alcatraz Island shone green, golden and white, with some sort of high wall surrounding it, and low buildings visible within the walls. Swift pointed it out to Hamilton. “A prison again?” he asked.