3xT

by Harry Turtledove

  "It's still remarkable, having seen it the same day it happened," Pete insisted.

  "Oh, no doubt. Me, though, I'll take one of Arthur Clarke's relay satellites, and see it the same minute it happens." The thing about McGregor, Pete thought, was that "good enough" would not do for him—he insisted on perfection. Sometimes he managed to wring it out of people, too.

  Back at the motel, the editor unlocked the suitcase he had parked by the bed before going out to eat. He pulled out a fat manila folder. "What's in there?" Pete asked.

  "A couple of manuscripts I've got from Gordian that I pulled out of the file. Look them over; I'd like to hear what you think of them." McGregor plainly had no intention of saying anything more for a bit; he sat in the motel room's shabby armchair puffing on an Old Gold while Pete sprawled full-length on the bed, reading.

  "'The Hole Man,' eh?" Pete said. "That's a nice piece of work—gloomy, but nice."

  McGregor only nodded and waited.

  Pete felt flustered, as if facing a one-man oral exam committee without having studied. He nervously stacked the pages the editor had given him.

  His fingers caught wrongness his eyes had missed. "Funny paper," he remarked; all four edges were rough, as if they had been torn off from perforations. "I've heard of typing paper sold in a roll, so you can run it into your typewriter continuously and rip off each sheet as you finish, but that would have smooth sides."

  "So it would," McGregor said. "I don't understand this either, but I noticed it. Keep going."

  After a few minutes, Pete said, "That's a high-quality ribbon he's using." He wasn't sure what made him notice that—probably a twinge of guilt at the decrepit state of his own.

  "It's what they call a carbon film ribbon," McGregor explained. "They use them for legal documents and other things that might need to be photostatted. The things are hard to find and hideously expensive, because you can only go through them once. I've never had stories typed on them submitted before, I can tell you that."

  "You've been researching this," Pete said accusingly.

  "Guilty as charged. I can also tell you that one of New York's better detectives looked at some of these pages and couldn't match the typeface to anything in his collection. He was so surprised he didn't charge me."

  "Curiouser and curiouser."

  "Isn't it? The gumshoe did notice something I flat-out missed. You're not spotting it, but it's pretty obvious when it gets pointed out to you."

  Pete stared without result at the pages in front of him. "All right, I give up. What is it?"

  "Look at the right margin."

  "My God! It's justified!" Pete felt like kicking himself for not noticing that right away. Every typescript he'd ever seen had a ragged right margin, but the pages of "The Hole Man" were so consistent and seemed so natural the way they were that their strangeness slipped by him.

  "Very good," the Astonishing editor said. "Again, there's a gadget that will pull off the same stunt, but it's hard to come by—and why on Earth would you bother? The result's pretty, sure, but more trouble than it's worth."

  "I'd say so." Pete sat up on the bed and took out a cigarette—he needed something to calm his nerves. He tapped the end of the Chesterfield on the nightstand to tamp down the tobacco; filtertips struck him as vaguely effeminate, and made the smoke taste like sawdust anyway. After a couple of deep drags, he said, "Whatever Gordian is, I don't think he's a telepath."

  McGregor peered at him over the tops of his glasses. "Why's that?"

  "It's not so much all this." He waved at the papers beside him. "This only helps confirm what I really decided on the drive down here—about 'Reactions,' I mean."

  "How's that?"

  "How would I put it? Something like this, maybe: there's more in the story you printed than I've thought of yet. The ideas, the world, even the names match, but the story has a depth of detail that I wouldn't begin to worry about until I actually started writing."

  The editor steepled his fingertips. "And so? What conclusions do you draw?"

  "Me? I'd rather not," Pete said, shaking his head. "I'd sooner believe in mind-reading."

  For the first time, he saw McGregor angry at him. "If you reject the data, what do you work from then? A Ouija board, or the entrails of a sheep?"

  "That's not fair," Pete protested. He felt himself flushing. "The whole thing is impossible."

  "It is? Then why are we in Los Angeles?"

  Pete had no good answer to that. McGregor got up and swatted him on the shoulder. "Nothing we can do about it at the moment, anyway. Maybe things will clear up when we meet Gordian. For now, though, I'd just as soon go to bed. I'm still running on East Coast time."

  "Fair enough," Pete said, but he was a long time falling asleep.

  * * *

  "This is part of the fourth largest city in the country?" McGregor said incredulously as Pete passed the airport going south on Sepulveda.

  "Well, actually, no," Pete answered. "According to that map on your lap, this is the sovereign city of El Segundo." There were streets and houses on the west side of Sepulveda; most of the east side was simply a field, brown under the summer sun and full of tumbleweeds.

  "Mostly oilwells, from what I can see of it."

  "It does look that way." Pete turned left onto El Segundo Boulevard. He drove for about a mile before coming on more houses. Then, just west of Hawthorne High School, the Chevy bumped over the streetcar tracks.

  "Signs of life," McGregor said. "A few, anyway." About four miles later, Pete turned right on Vermont and headed south. The street was wide and looked as if it ought to be important, but it had a dirt center divider and there were good long stretches of field along it. It did, however, boast of a supermarket, a liquor store across the street, and a couple of large, garish buildings that identified themselves as "clubs." "Wonder what those are," McGregor said.

  "Poker parlors," Pete said, pleased as always when he knew something the Astonishing editor didn't (it didn't happen very often). "Under California law, draw poker's a game of skill, and it's local option whether to allow it or not. This Gardena makes a bundle off the taxes the clubs pay."

  Gardena Boulevard, where the post office was, was as much of a business district as the little town had. There was a Rexall drugstore on the corner at Vermont, a small department store and a jeweler's a little farther west, and then a pink stucco Bank of America, its gold Old English lettering gleaming in the morning sun.

  But even Gardena Boulevard had its share of houses, mostly white clapboard buildings that dated from well before the war. The post office was next to one of those, just west of a narrow street called Budlong. Pete pulled in front of it; there was plenty of room to park. "Now what?" he said as he killed the engine.

  McGregor was wrestling with the road map; as Pete might have expected, his competence extended to refolding one of the damned things. He tossed it into the glove compartment. "Now," he said, "we go in and wait for Mr. Gordian to open box one forty-eight."

  "And get ourselves thrown out by the postmaster when we hang around for six or eight hours looking for somebody who doesn't show up."

  "Nonsense. Writers haunt mailboxes; it's part of the disease. As for the postmaster, leave him to me."

  "I suppose I have to." They were already walking up the low, broad steps into the building.

  But it proved just as the editor had predicted. When the gaunt fellow behind the counter asked, "Help you gents?" McGregor said, "Yes. Could you tell me what time you usually put mail in your boxes? We're supposed to meet someone here then."

  The man accepted that as casually as McGregor had said it. "Usually about eleven," he answered. "You've got some time to use up."

  "Any place we could get a cup of coffee?" Pete asked, not wanting to be entirely left out.

  "There's a delicatessen down the block there," the man said. He pointed west. "Reckon they can help you."

  The coffee at Giuliano's was scalding hot and strong enough to growl, but good. W
hile Pete and McGregor were drinking it, a Japanese man wearing a suit and hat came in; a lot of the people on the street in Gardena were Orientals. The man bought half a pound of cotto salami, paid the clerk and thanked him, and walked out.

  "Acculturation." McGregor chuckled. His gaze sharpened, as if coming into focus. "Hmm—seems to me you could do something with that. Suppose you had an alien race, now, just coming into contact with technologically superior Terrans—"

  The resulting conversation had the deli clerk listening, pop-eyed, from behind his counter and Pete frantically scribbling notes. He barely remembered to look at his watch. "It's half-past ten," he said. "We'd better get back, in case they're early today."

  The Astonishing editor got up (to the clerk's obvious disappointment), but was not a man easily derailed from his train of thought. "All very well," he said as they walked back toward the post office, "but what about the attitude of the aliens' priests? No matter how much Terran gadgets eased life for their people, wouldn't they see them as black magic? And how would that affect their society?"

  "You could take different approaches to that," Pete said. "The priests might even be right, for their special set of circumstances."

  "So they might. My God, there's no one right answer! What I want to see is a good, solid, internally consistent story that carries its underlying assumptions—whatever those are—as far as they can go."

  A couple of people were already waiting by the post office boxes, and several more came in after Pete and McGregor. "They can't all be writers," Pete whispered behind his hand.

  The editor rolled his eyes. "You'd be amazed."

  At five after eleven a mailman with a fat bag and a jingling ring full of keys pushed through the small crowd and began filling the boxes. McGregor nudged Pete in the ribs, but he had also seen the envelopes going into number 148.

  Pete looked round, wondering which (if any) of the men near him was the mysterious Mark Gordian. Surely not the bald little man in overalls; he looked as if he didn't read anything, let alone write. The fellow who looked like a doctor was more likely, or the muscular man wearing a loud tie.

  He got a lesson on how much such speculation was worth when the person who opened the box proved to be a freckled, redheaded woman with glasses. She might have been a couple of years younger than he was, and looked comfortably casual in a rust-colored blouse and green pedal pushers.

  McGregor chuckled beside him. "I suppose there's no reason Gordian can't be married."

  "I guess not," Pete agreed. He was taken aback all the same; he had used so much energy thinking about Mark Gordian the writer and Mark Gordian the enigma that Mark Gordian the person was outside his reckoning.

  The woman paid no attention to him or McGregor. They followed her outside. She was opening the mail. One envelope plainly had a check in it; that went into her purse. After she opened another one, she said, "Oh, shit," crumpled up the sheet of paper inside, and threw it away. She did not seem angry, merely irritated; it was how a man would swear. Pete blinked.

  Her car was parked a couple of spaces down from his Chevy. He frowned a little; she drove a cheap, ugly Volkswagen Bug. Having spent several months getting shot at by Germans, he did not care for the idea of buying automobiles from them.

  She was unlocking the car door when he called, "Excuse me, are you Mrs. Gordian?"

  For a second she did not react. Then she looked up in surprise. "I don't think I know you," she said, "but yes, I'm Miss Gordian." Pete felt stupid for not noticing she wore no ring, and only a little better because McGregor had missed it too.

  The editor nodded to her in apology. He said, "You are related to Mark Gordian, aren't you?"

  Her eyes narrowed. Pete thought she was going to drive away without answering, and got ready to dive into his car after her. Instead, though, she began to ask, "Who are—" She stopped. "You're James McGregor." It sounded like an accusation.

  "Yes." He indicated Pete. "This is Peter Lundquist."

  Her eyebrows shot up. "Why, so it is!" she exclaimed. It was as if she recognized him, and he was sure he had never seen her before. She hesitated again. "Why are you looking for Mark Gordian?"

  Pete gave it to her in one word: "'Reactions.'"

  He could see it hit home. "Oh," she said, and kicked at the sidewalk. "Oh, shit." This time it sounded like resignation. "You were already working on it?"

  His heart thuttered inside his chest. He forced himself to steadiness. "Yes."

  "Are you related to Mark Gordian?" McGregor persisted.

  One corner of her mouth quirked upward. "In a manner of speaking. I am Mark Gordian."

  Pete had never seen the Astonishing editor with a foolish expression on his face, but suspected he bore a similar one on his own. McGregor's rally was a visible thing. "Fair enough, I suppose," he said. "There's E. Maine Hull, after all, and C. L. Moore, and I understand Andre Norton is a woman too. Pleased to meet you, 'Mark.' "

  She was still studying the two of them. "I'm not nearly sure I'm pleased to meet you. Who else knows you're here?" It was a sharp challenge; Pete thought her close to bolting again.

  "My wife, of course," the editor said, and Pete echoed him. McGregor added, "There's a detective back in New York who's interested in the typewriter you use."

  "I daresay he would be." She chuckled without much humor. "No one else? Not the FBI or the CIA?"

  Pete spread his hands. "What would we have to show them? They'd laugh themselves sick at us Buck Rogers types. And besides," he added with characteristic independence, "what business is it of theirs, anyway?"

  "Yes, you would be one to say that, wouldn't you?" Again he had the feeling she knew a good deal about him. She nodded slowly, as if coming to a decision. "All right, follow me home if you like. If anyone is, you're entitled to an explanation." She did not wait for an answer, but stooped to get into the Volkswagen. Its raucous air-cooled engine roared to life.

  About ten minutes later she pulled into the driveway of a freshly built tract house; the front lawn still had the half-threadbare look that tender new grass gives. Pete parked his Chevrolet across the street. She was locking her car while he and McGregor walked over.

  She waved at the house. "Isn't it splendid? I've only been in about four months. Eleven thousand five hundred dollars and a four-and-a-half percent loan."

  "Everything is too expensive these days," Pete said sympathetically.

  She turned red and made a peculiar strangled noise that perplexed him until he saw she was trying not to laugh. "Never mind," she said. "Care for some lunch? I'm no great cook, but sandwiches are easy, and there's beer in the refrigerator."

  "Sold," McGregor said at once. Pete nodded too.

  "Come on, then."

  For a reason Pete had trouble naming, the inside of her house disappointed him. It was pleasant enough, with Early American furniture, Raphael prints on the walls, and a number of well-filled bookcases—nothing out of the ordinary. Then he realized that was the problem. He had expected something strange, and did not know what to make of this blatant normality.

  She led him and McGregor into the kitchen, slapped ham, dill pickle, and mustard on rye bread, used a churchkey to open three cans of Burgermeister. For a few minutes they were all busy eating. "That was good," Pete said, wiping his mouth. "Thanks, uh—your name isn't really Mark, is it?"

  She smiled. "It's Michelle, as a matter of fact."

  Almost at the same time, the two men got out their cigarettes and looked round for an ashtray. They did not see one. Michelle Gordian's smile disappeared. "I'd rather you didn't smoke in the house," she said, a trifle sharply. McGregor shrugged and put his pack away. So, reluctantly, did Pete; his nicotine habit was much stronger than the editor's.

  Michelle put the few dishes in the sink, then said, "Why don't we go back into the living room? It's more comfortable there."

  She waved them to the couch, sat down herself in a rocking chair facing them. She came to the point with a directness Pete was not
used to in a woman: "Just what is it you think I am?"

  He had to try twice before he got the words out: "A time-traveler." Speculating about the impossible was much easier than proposing it—that implied belief.

  "Why?" She effortlessly controlled the conversation; for once even McGregor did not seem eager to break in. As much as anything else, that helped make Pete take the preposterous idea seriously.

  He plowed ahead, outlining the strangeness he and the Astonishing editor had found. As he spoke, he knew how absurd he had to sound. He waited for Michelle to burst into laughter. But instead she was leaning forward in the rocker, following him intently. He thought of her for the first time as an attractive woman; interest brought her features to life.

  When he had stumbled to a halt, she was silent for most of a minute. As had been true outside the post office, though, once she made up her mind she went with it all the way. "You're right, of course," she said briskly.

  McGregor had been gathering himself while Pete was talking. "I'd like to see more proof than a peculiar typewriter and a story that corresponds too well to an outline," he said. "I've been burned before. And forgive me, but nothing here looks the least bit, ah, extratemporal. That goes for what I take to be your study, too, from what I saw of it from the kitchen."

  "I'm not that careless," Michelle said, "even if I obviously wasn't careful enough. I have neighbors and friends who visit me; what would they make of a disc drive or a VCR?"

  Nonsense words and letters, Pete thought. McGregor's snort said he agreed with that judgment. He shook his head with sarcastic mock sadness. "So, of course, you have nothing to show us."

  Michelle Gordian's eyes sparked angrily. "I didn't say that," she snapped. She rummaged in her purse, took out a thin white plastic rectangle about the size of a driver's license, fiddled with it for a moment, and tossed it to her guests. "Go ahead—it's on. Just punch the numbers and functions and signs."