The Second Science Fiction Megapack

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

“So, you could take a bunch of school kids to a big war?” Maisie asked.

  “I’m not sure about that.” Agnes remembered her own visit to the night the gold miners had burned one of her ancestors’ settlements. She still had nightmares about it.

  “You don’t got nothing,” Ike said. “They want us to show them a time machine.”

  “I do got something,” Agnes said, surprised by the force of her words. “What do you know about time travel? Space travel was already invented. Anybody can send an Indian to the moon, especially when you throw all that money at it. The Seminoles get a aeronautical complex the size of Rhode Island and funding to recruit rocket scientists from all over the world. I’m stuck in a concrete longhouse that looks like a prison with a budget so small that I’m down to a staff of five. You ask me to invent time travel with five people.”

  “I thought you said that thing works,” Ramona said.

  “Yes, however—”

  “Show it to us.” Maisie slapped a hand on the table and all three of them jumped.

  “It works.” Agnes didn’t know how to convey the precision that was involved. “I want it to be right when you—”

  “You don’t got any more time,” Ike said. “We need to bring something back to the Consortium.”

  Agnes stared at the zucchini, trying to calculate based on the estimated mass, how many loaves of bread she convert them to, provided she had the time and energy. The equation took shape in her head.

  “I will prepare a demonstration,” she finally said. “Give me a month.”

  “No. We meet with the Consortium next week.” Ike pushed his empty coffee mug away with finality. “You get it done this weekend. We’ll come see it on Monday.”

  Maisie picked up her things and breezed out the door. “I’ll see you there.”

  Agnes eased herself into a chair. She could have taken on any research project. But no, she wanted to breathe the pure unadorned truth of her ancestors. She wanted to be present in true history. Why couldn’t she get this across? She began planning her weekend at the lab. Maybe the people back home were right. She should have stayed and been a teacher and exposed young Indians to the wonder of science.

  She pulled out a piece of paper and began making a list of what she needed for Monday. Maybe the university could send over some graduate students and allow them to borrow some supplies and equipment. She needed to check her stash of office clothes and snacks. She was no stranger to sleeping in the lab. She jotted these items down making a note to buy cookies and bring her coffee maker from home.

  Someone coughed. Ike and Ramona sat in their chairs watching her.

  “Can you drive us to bingo?” Ike asked.

  “I’m afraid not.” Agnes collected her papers and shut down her presentation. “I have a major scientific project to demonstrate on Monday. Can I call someone for you?”

  Ike pointed at the clock. “You can quit early today. We’re your boss.”

  Ramona wore a pilled sweater with cuffed sleeves and she pulled a tissue from one of the cuffs and blew her nose. “I got my bingo bag with me.” She reached out and patted the quilted bag that hung on her chair.

  Agnes looked at the elders and then to her list. Theo could get it started. “Sure, I suppose I could drop you off.”

  * * * *

  Agnes drove the official van of the history viewer project because it ran better than the battered two-door subcompact she owned. Ike climbed into the front while she helped Ramona fasten her seatbelt in the back. The elder’s knobby hands weren’t strong enough to push the latch into the buckle.

  The casino was on the other side of town. This particular casino had been built after Agnes’ project started. Agnes wondered if the Tribe funded any science projects. A tall neon sign at the side of the highway marked the turn-off and they drove another couple of miles before the hulking structure appeared.

  “Elders’ entrance.” Ramona held her bingo bag on her lap.

  Agnes pulled up to the awning built from giant logs that had been polished to a yellow shine. A kid in a red blazer stood at the valet stand. He smiled and waved.

  “More.” Ramona motioned for Agnes to pull forward.

  Agnes drove right up to the sign at the curbside that said, “Elders’ Entrance.” As soon as she stopped, the kid in the red blazer had the door open. She recognized him as Maisie’s nephew who had visited the lab once for a school project.

  “Hey, Mr. Chairman,” he said to Ike, even though Ike had been out of office for years. “Hi Ramona,” he called. He released Ramona’s seatbelt and helped her out of the van.

  Ramona tapped the kid’s blazer with the back of her hand. “You look good.” She gave Agnes an expectant look. “You coming?”

  “Too much work to do,” Agnes said with feigned brightness.

  By now the kid had come around to Agnes’ door and offered her a hand. “Come on, you know what they say: bingo is for lovers.”

  Agnes wondered if she missed something when Ramona and Ike laughed.

  “I really can’t,” she said. The electronic ching of the gaming machines drifted out the open door. Agnes couldn’t remember the last time she’d done anythingy for recreation.

  “Come along now, young lady,” Ramona urged. “You need more time with the people.”

  “Okay,” Agnes said, still not sure. The kid pushed the valet ticket into her hand. “One game. Then I have to get back.”

  She followed them inside and could hardly keep up as they crossed the casino floor to the bingo hall. At the admission window, both Ike and Ramona bought the Premium Level Dancing Feathers pack. Agnes balked at the price and used the last bills in her purse to buy the entry level Roaring Rivers pack instead.

  Inside, the room was already three-quarters full but Maisie saw them come in and waved them over to her table.

  “You too, eh?” she said to Agnes with approval. A little girl ran up to the table and grabbed a handful of Maisie’s blouse. “Grandma!” She offered up her bright face. Maisie leaned down until their foreheads touched, then the girl ran off again.

  “Those kids love bingo,” Maisie said.

  Ramona open her pack and spread the cards out on the table. Then she opened her bingo bag and pulled out a red dauber.

  “Should I get one of those?” Agnes said.

  Ramona shook her head, “You use that one.”

  “What about you?”

  Ramona pulled out a plastic sack with eight more daubers each in a different color and arranged them in a semi-circle on the table. “These smell like flowers,” she said. “Try one.”

  Agnes picked up a dauber and it did smell sweet but closer to grape punch than something you’d find in a flower garden. “It’s nice.” Agnes sniffed her red dauber and it smelled like sour ink. Ramona set a Royal Salmon Casino mug that Agnes recognized from the office next to the daubers and then took out a photograph of her husband and a smooth black rock that looked a little bit like a heart.

  “What’s that?” Agnes asked.

  “For luck.” Finally, Ramona set out an ashtray that said Pendleton Round-Up 1972, a pack of Omaha cigarettes and a silver lighter with a chunk of turquoise on it. “Some of those places use computers for bingo. I like the cards.”

  By this time Ike and his wife had shown up and they spread out their own array of daubers, theirs with pictures of cowboys and Indians, and good luck charms consisting of a wooden buffalo nickel and a troll doll with wild green hair.

  “We need coffee.” Ike sat up and searched the room.

  Maisie whistled and a bored and unsmiling Indian boy approached the table. “Here’s our runner,” she said. “This is my grandson, Junior. Say hello to the former Chairman.”

  Junior shook Ike’s hand. “Nice to see you, sir.”

  “Bring us some coffee.” Maisie tossed him a twenty from a beaded coin purse she wore around her neck. “I see the bingo caller, looks like we’re getting started.”

  Ramona patted Agnes’ arm and showed her
which card to use. “Do one card so you can keep up.”

  Agnes bristled at the instruction. She had degrees in physics and history and had invented a time viewer on the world’s smallest budget. “I’m sure I can keep up.”

  The blower blew a single ball into a tube and the caller began. Agnes was still searching her card when he called the next number.

  Agnes quickly forgot her intention to stay for one game. Over the next several hours she struggled to keep up with the elders. They all had cigarettes hanging out of their mouths and double-fisted the daubers, periodically leaning over and hitting Agnes’ cards with dots without missing a beat in the conversation.

  Ramona won $400 and grinned across the table. “This is how I make my pocket money.”

  During intermission Junior brought them sodas and hamburgers. While they ate the bingo caller made announcements about bingo events scheduled over the next month.

  Then he said, “We have no other events scheduled at this time. Tribal Council is considering closing the bingo hall to make room for casino improvements.”

  Unhappy cries filled the room.

  “You were serious,” Agnes said to Maisie. “That’s like canceling Christmas.”

  “Or worse.” Maisie shrugged unhappily.

  “You need to take your complaints to them,” the bingo caller said. “Not my idea.”

  “What would you do without bingo?” Agnes asked.

  “I don’t know,” Ramona said, shaking her head. “This is where my friends are.”

  * * * *

  Agnes spent the rest of the weekend in a frenzy of preparations. Her biggest problem was her grand vision for the perfect demonstration. She’d always envisioned taking a group of Indian kids, parents and elders and presenting it in the way she imagined they’d use the device for tourists. The group would view iconic moments in Indian history and upon returning, enjoy a traditional feast and dancing.

  Instead, she met the Board members at the front of the building with an electric cart she borrowed from the grocery store. Theo had rigged it so that one person could drive and one person could ride facing backwards. Agnes helped Ramona into this seat and showed Ike how to work the controls. Wilbur showed up and he nodded when Agnes said good morning. He wore a blue calico ribbon shirt and his big white beard fanned out over his chest.

  Ike started the cart and crashed into the door frame. Ramona’s cane clattered to the floor.

  “Watch it, you,” she said. Agnes handed her the cane and helped Ike steer inside.

  “This place needs some paint,” Maisie said.

  “This place needs a lot of things,” Agnes said. She guided the group to the elevator and took them to the lab entrance. She led them into the lab, a high-ceilinged room with gray walls. One half was filled with computers and narrow metal tables stacked with papers. Theo typed into a keyboard attached to the device which took up one wall. Agnes liked to describe it as a giant computer fused to a radiator. The other side of the room was clear except for a circular gray rubber mat and four plastic chairs.

  “Don’t look like much,” Ramona said.

  “I know. But I think I can show you how important this is.” Agnes pointed at the mat. “We sit right there.”

  She helped Ramona from the cart and got everyone seated. Agnes crowded in behind them.

  “You need to make this thing bigger,” Ike said.

  “That’s the plan, Ike. Remember? This is just for demonstration.”

  “I thought it would look more like a car,” Ramona said. “Like the movie, and we put it in reverse to go back in time.”

  “Sorry,” Agnes said, her hopes for success beginning to fade. “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “How does it work?” Ramona asked.

  Agnes tried to think of the best way to put it. She finally said, “I press this button and there’s a bright light and fuzzy noise and then we’ll be looking through a window into another place in time.”

  “We end up any old place?” Maisie asked.

  “No, I input the data to choose a place and time.” She showed them the handheld portion of the device. These dials can control certain variables and the button engages the machine.”

  “Could I press it?” Ike turned in the chair and stretched his hand out to the control.

  Agnes lifted it out of his reach. “Not this time. Are you ready?”

  Ramona pulled her cane closer to her body and nodded.

  Agnes twisted the twin dials that pinpointed the day and time, then adjusted the environmental control switches and finally, moved the center wand which looked like a joystick and would place them in the right spot. She nodded at Theo. He flipped several switches and jiggled a thin gray cable that attached the device to the wall. They had programmed the device earlier but Agnes thought a little theater might be good for the Board.

  “We’re going to go…five, four, three, two, one.”

  The room trembled and disappeared with a buzz and a flash of silver light.

  Agnes’ favorite part was how the new time location gradually came into focus. First, the pale beige lumps sharpening into distant low brown hills. Then just enough of a grass scented breeze to stir their hair as the fishing camp became visible. Finally, something that Agnes called time dust faded and the scene came into view. Agnes had found the perfect moment and the flap of the tule-mat teepee snapped open and a woman emerged with a small child close behind. She crossed the dirt and tended the fish on the drying racks.

  “Hello!” Ramona called, waving with great enthusiasm.

  Ike pushed her arm down, “Stop. We can’t upset them.”

  “It’s okay,” Agnes said. “They can’t see.”

  “When is this?” Maisie whispered.

  “You don’t have to whisper,” Agnes said. “It’s 1800, about 150 years before the dam was built.”

  “Oh. My.” Ramona sat forward in her chair. This sort of reaction was exactly what Agnes hoped for.

  “We’re the first modern Indians to see what life was really like before contact,” Agnes said.

  The vision continued to intensify and the breeze flared up and brought the stench of rotting fish. Maisie put a hand over her mouth and sagged in the chair. “You didn’t say it would stink.”

  Agnes adjusted the environmental controls and made a mental note to take the scent down a notch before visiting this spot. For herself, she enjoyed the historical realism.

  Agnes wanted to focus the demonstration on pre-contact Indian scenes but Theo convinced her she needed to go big and flashy. She reset the controls and moved the group to a seat at the Gettysburg Address, which got barely a dull nod. She let that scene fade out and they rode through a blue mist that gradually cleared until they were overlooking the field at Superbowl XXIX. She knew Ike was a diehard 49ers fan.

  “You can do this?” Ike bounced up and down like a kid.

  From there Agnes took them to a fireworks display over the Eiffel tower from the early 1900s. The event had no substantial historical importance, but it was a nice show and all four Board members applauded when it was over.

  Agnes returned to the undeveloped landscape of what would someday become Oregon.

  “What do you think so far?”

  “This is a great machine you made,” Ike said.

  “You bet,” Maisie said. “I didn’t know you could do all that.”

  “Can you see why this is so important?” Agnes watched their faces hopefully. They all nodded, too overcome to speak.

  “Good. I’ve saved the best for last.” She adjusted the controller. Once again the view faded and they moved. This time, the roar of the falls vibrated under the viewing mat before they could see the wall of cascading white water that burst over a half-circle of huge basalt boulders. The breeze carried a cool mist with it. The blue water of the river stretched out into the far distance.

  Ike raised his hand and Agnes touched a dial to adjust the sound.

  “Oh, Celilo Falls.” Ramona held her face in he
r hands, her eyes wide. “My father fished right there.”

  A number of wooden platforms extended from the rocks and as they watched, a trio of Indians arrived with nets on circular hoops that looked large enough to scoop cattle.

  “Dip nets,” Maisie said. “My grandkids would love this.”

  The men dunked the nets in and out of the roiling pool. They couldn’t speak over the roar of the water but they exchanged hand signals and laughed. One of nets came out of the water with a thrashing fish and the fisherman swung it up on the rocks. Another one bashed it with a wooden club. The salmon measured from the ground to the man’s chest when he held it up and it looked like he was showing it off for them.

  “Look at that thing,” Wilbur said. The other three Board members turned to stare at the uncharacteristic outburst.

  Agnes gazed at the landscape. She could never get enough of these pristine views. She didn’t notice a problem until Ike touched her wrist. Ramona’s rounded shoulders shook and she waved her hands at the falls as if to shoo away a dog.

  “Take us back.” Ike had his arm around Ramona but Agnes couldn’t hear what he said to her.

  Agnes clicked the controller and in a flash, the falls disappeared and they were back in the lab. Theo sat at the console eating something that looked like chili out of a paper cup. He tossed it in the trash but not before Agnes gave him the stink eye.

  “Back so soon?” he said.

  Agnes gestured with her chin and he spotted Ramona, her head bowed with Ike and Maisie on either side, comforting her.

  Theo gave Agnes a distressed look. “I’ll get some water?” She nodded and he slipped out.

  “Why did you show us something so sad?” Maisie rubbed Ramona’s back, her face twisted with concern.

  Agnes didn’t know what to say.

  Ramona sat up. “We was there when they made that dam. The government promised us that fishing place and then gave my father $3000 and filled it up with water.”

  “I know,” Agnes said. “Wasn’t it amazing to see it before it was destroyed?”

  “He nailed that check to the wall. He didn’t want their money.” Tears ran down Ramona’s cheeks and she pulled a rumpled tissue from her sleeve.