Corrupting Dr. Nice Read online

  Owen hated to admit that he might be right. "As you please," he said.

  "I'll go with Dr. Vannice," Emma said. She and Owen left the greenhouse and headed down the slope. The sun was in the west now, casting the shadows of pines sideways across the road. They stopped several times while Emma examined Wilma's tracks in the topsoil, her bite marks on the tree limbs.

  "Have you ever had a qualified veterinarian examine Wilma?" Emma asked.

  "There's nobody more qualified to care for Wilma than I am," Owen said. "What vet in this century has any experience of dinosaurs?" Emma crouched beside the road with a childlike awkwardness that made him want to help her.

  =Keep your eyes on the road, boss.=

  Embarrassed, Owen directed his gaze to the boathouse.

  =Never a free bed in the land of funny money.=

  He was beginning to wish he hadn't started by playing a trick on her. Here was a woman who looked like Genevieve, but with a completely legitimate career. Practical, direct, intelligent, not at all flirtatious. And all she thought of him was how irresponsible he was. "I appreciate you're helping me in there with Wilma," he said. "You think quickly, and obviously are concerned."

  "We don't agree with your bringing Wilma here, Dr. Vannice," Emma said. "Tampering with time is dangerous."

  "I agree with that."

  "If that’s so, Wilma is a pretty big demonstration that you’re a hypocrite.”

  "It's hard to live up to one's principles. Sometimes two ideas come into conflict, and one loses."

  "In such cases, you can tell a lot about a person by which one he chooses to abandon. A brontosaurus has no place in this era. But as long as Wilma's here, we want to make sure she's used for serious purposes. Not for some frivolous media sideshow."

  "So do I."

  "I don't know you well enough to judge your motives. In the light of the attention you've already gained through this creature, I hope you'll understand if we assumed the worst."

  "Certainly, Ms. Zume. I don't expect, from the media, you could assume otherwise."

  They came down to the boathouse. "You certainly don't act like a Heinleinian," Emma said.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Come, come. We've heard the reports you make a game of sleeping with your ancestors."

  "Ms. Zume! I don't even like people."

  "I see."

  "By people, I mean my family. I don't like my family. Especially my ancestors, none of whom I've ever met. So I haven't slept with them. I've hardly slept with anyone, actually."

  =You're babbling.=

  "Thanks," Owen muttered. "I know that."

  "Excuse me?"

  "'No slats,'" he said, waving his arm at the building. "There are no slats in the shutters on this side of the boathouse, you see?"

  She looked at him. "You're sure it wasn't you who ate these shingles?"

  "No. I mean, yes. I mean, no, I never eat shingles."

  He circled around the boathouse and out onto the dock. His parents’ forty-foot sailboat Recapture rested on one side, and the ancient spruce motorboat on the other. Avoiding Emma's gaze, he made a show of checking the sailboat's moorings. When he turned, squinting into the sun, Emma had come down onto the dock.

  "My parents are having a fundraising ball at my father's College of Advanced Thought this Saturday," he said. "Do you think that you could come?"

  "Why, whatever for?"

  "So I might see you again. I could explain further about my research. I think you've gotten the wrong impression about me."

  "I don't know if that would be proper."

  "Don't say no yet. Think about it."

  Up at the house, he could see figures on the verandah. Owen realized they'd been watched all the time they were together. He selected a piece of shingle for analysis and they headed back up the slope. They stopped at the greenhouse. Wilma was fine now, but Thrillkiller was not there.

  When they got back to the house, they found Lance Thrillkiller sitting on the verandah with Owen's mother. A pitcher of lemonade stood on the table between them, and they were having an intense conversation. Owen had never seen anyone ingratiate himself to his mother so quickly.

  Rosethrush waved them over. "We were watching you," she said. "Owen, you acted the perfect gentleman. I expected you at least to knock her off the dock, then rescue her. What's wrong with this younger generation, Mr. Thrillkiller? No initiative."

  "Our Ms. Zume is full of initiative," Thrillkiller said.

  "You seem to have hit it off mighty well," Owen said. "I hope you haven't sold Wilma out from under me, mother."

  "Wilma is the obsession of the male portion of this family, Owen."

  "We were discussing the upcoming trial of the zealot conspirators," Thrillkiller said. "Ms. Vannice did not realize that the ComPP is part of the consortium paying for the defense of the historicals--though I was well aware that ATD Pix will be broadcasting the proceedings."

  "Which doesn't mean that I'm prejudiced against the defendants," Rosethrush added hastily. "The defendants must have first class representation. We just want to be certain that justice is served."

  "And if the trial goes on for six months, so much the better for ratings," Owen said.

  Rosethrush leaned toward Thrillkiller. "For a well bred young man, my son is a considerable cynic."

  Thrillkiller nodded. "Of course, it's an injustice that the Zealots have been locked up two thousand years from their families, their homes, their culture and their era. They don't have the rights of citizens, yet we presume to try them as if they were."

  "That's unfortunate, true. What would you have done differently?"

  "ComPP has been trying to get Simon released into our custody. It would help if someone with influence stepped in on his behalf."

  "Why would such an influential person do such a thing?"

  "Justice. Oh, and I suppose the exclusive story of Simon the Zealot might be worth some money. Some public appearances could generate interest in the trial."

  Rosethrush sipped her lemonade. "I think I might know someone who could help you out."

  Lance handed her his card. "Call me."

  "My husband has been planning a little get together this weekend," Rosethrush said, rising. "A fundraising dance at his College of Advanced Thought. We'd be honored if you and Ms. Zume could attend. We can speak further about these arrangements at that time. And you can tell Owen the results of your report on his dinosaur."

  "I'd love to come," Emma said. "Thank you."

  "What a charming girl you are." Rosethrush took Emma's arm and, folding it over hers, led them to the front door. "Next time, you have my permission to push Owen off the dock."

  FOUR: THE GOOD FAIRY

  The books were full of the history of time travel. Simon was not able to understand much of it at first, but he had little else to do.

  The rationalization of Gödel's theories of closed timelike curves with a self-consistent quantum theory of time was accomplished by Alexander Davidovich Berman in his elegant paper of 2016. For twelve years time displacement remained no more than a theoretical possibility, until researchers at Nomaclade Technologies' orbital facility under the direction of the brilliant theoretical physicist Angela Patel created the first artificial singularity in 2028. The possibilities for space and time travel inherent in Patel's discovery were recognized immediately and intensively pursued. R&D sparked by Food War I confirmed Berman's moment-universe model and, after the close of hostilities, the first successful time displacement experiments occurred in 2035. Once-only time travel to past moment universes began in 2037, and found immediate commercial uses. For a decade or more time travel was confined to unburned moment universes, but in 2048 Tempenautics perfected the ability to revisit the same moment-universe (with the side benefit of the application of Berman physics to space travel), and rapidly the settlement of specified moment universes, and the widespread commercial exploitation of the past, followed.

  Simon's cell was a white room t
hree meters square. The hard plastic walls were graffiti proof. A bed folded down from one wall. Beside it stood a toilet and small sink.

  Simon sat at a table opposite the bed and listened to a blues song on headphones. One of the few advantages of being jailed in the future was almost unlimited access to music. In front of him, below the photograph of Alma that he had taped to the wall, lay an electronic book running the text of Berman Physics for Blockheads, beside a scattering of chips for Pop Goes the 21st Century, Understanding Fractal Economics, A New Outline of History and a dozen others, plus a notebook full of handwriting in Hebrew. But Simon had put down his pen. He hunched over the table, rocking back and forth to the wail of Robert Johnson singing "If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day."

  He did not hear the unlocking of the door, but the change in the shadows of the room as it swung open drew his attention. He stopped the music, turned, then slowly removed the headphones. It was the guard named Brody, Warden Sikora, and a stranger in a sleek gray suit.

  "Simon," the warden said, "this is your lucky day. This here is your good fairy, Mr. Detlev Gruber, who represents ATD Pix. You're getting out."

  "Pardon me?"

  "We've arranged for you to be released on bond, Simon," Gruber said. Detlev Gruber was a handsome man, taller than Simon but average for these people, with light brown hair, an open face, green eyes. He sat down on the bed. "You'll have to wear a monitor, but you'll be out of prison."

  "This godforsaken age is a prison."

  "Yes, but the air is better outside. The Committee to Protect the Past is going to pay for your defense. Mr. Lance Thrillkiller will take care of you until your trial."

  "What about the others?"

  "They're not part of this deal. Since the court has decided to try you separately, and you're first, the committee is starting with you. We'll do what we can for the others as their time comes. The important thing is, if you're acquitted, your friends stand a better chance of being acquitted, too. So it's up to you to make a good impression." Gruber looked at Sikora, then stood. "Come on, now, we need to go."

  "What about my things?"

  "They will be sent along later."

  "I won't leave unless I can take some things with me."

  Gruber hesitated, looked at Sikora. Sikora shrugged. "Of course," Gruber said.

  Simon opened his carved olivewood box and put the photo of Alma and the Robert Johnson bead in, with a handful of other music and books. He closed the box, picked it up and turned to them.

  "That's all?" Sikora asked.

  "That's all."

  They led him down the hall in the direction opposite to the exercise yard, through a barred door to another corridor and eventually to another room. In the room they made him change out of the orange prison coverall and into contemporary trousers and a shirt. They attached a skintight ward to his wrist. While the technician worked, the warden and Gruber talked about Simon as if he were not there.

  "This one's handled incarceration better than the rest of these terrorists," Sikora said.

  "If that's the case, they should have let him loose long before now."

  "It's for his own good," said the warden. "These towelheads don't know slime about the present day. They'd either be victims of somebody looking to make a political point, or ripe bait for some shark."

  Gruber leaned over to slip a finger under the wristward. "Not too tight, is it Simon?" He turned back to Sikora. "That's why Mrs. Vannice has assigned me to take care of him. We'll see that nothing happens."

  The warden didn't say anything.

  They walked Simon down another corridor, through another barred door, past another checkpoint, and by way of a door Simon had never been through before, into the yard. The sky was overcast. The warden walked Simon and Gruber to the gate. They opened the door within the gate, Gruber stepped outside and Simon followed--and that was it, he was out. In a parking lot on a hill. The lot had a good view of the Hudson, which Simon had never seen, since they had brought him here in the middle of the night. They stood beneath the trees at the edge of the lot, and he breathed deeply of the cool air. He could feel his pulse throb against the wristward. "Thank you for getting me out of there," he said.

  Gruber opened the door of his car and Simon got in. Simon held his box on his lap. When Gruber started the car the compartment filled with music, the middle of a song. Over a hypnotic drumbeat floated the slow sound of a pipe, and a young man's voice.

  My fault, wrong time

  I thought you wouldn't be taken

  A sound that rattles all your bones

  A loss that can't be shaken.

  Simon recognized that mournful voice. How could such a sad voice fill him with such hope?

  Gruber drove them down the hill to the highway that ran south along the river. He touched a control, the music stopped, and he swiveled his seat to face Simon. "You don't know about this," he said, "but I met a version of you before. I started out as a talent scout for the studios. It was twenty years ago, the first time anyone recruited Jesus. We snatched him from the middle of the audience before Pilate. It was poor planning, but we were new at it. Later we got more subtle."

  "I don't remember any of this."

  "Right. Your Jesus was the second one. This was in a different moment universe from yours."

  "What happened to me?"

  "Uh--well, I don't think you survived. Sorry. Actually, it was a mess. A lot of shooting, and we had to leave in a hurry. Time travel was a new thing then. Once you visited an M-U, it was burned, and you couldn't go back. But there was an edge to it back then, a charge. Every time you went someplace, you were the first and only time traveler to go there. High risk, no responsibility."

  No responsibility. That sounded about right. Months of study had cleared up many things about these people that had seemed mysterious back in Jerusalem. A man like Halam, who had seemed completely without scruples back there, now was comprehensible. Gruber could be Halam's brother.

  The future had lost its ability to strike Simon dumb with awe. But its callousness was all too familiar. To the sinful neglect that the rich of his own time had practiced, the rich of the future only added a few new rationalizations. They believed in something called heredity, for instance. The poor were born inferior; why else would they be poor?

  This did not keep the futurians from holding directly contrary beliefs. The same people who thought the poor were born inferior also believed poverty was a choice. The poor were wicked, and poverty a crime. Therefore if a harsh enough stigma was attached to it, fewer people would choose it. Future prisons, Simon had discovered, were more full of the poor than the prisons of his own time.

  Charity bred indigence. The most serious moralists of this time even attacked "employment opportunity centers"--what had in earlier times been called workhouses--as "pauper palaces." What to do with these morally and genetically worthless people? Ship them off into the past, into some rude era where, the rich could tell themselves, the poor could "make something of themselves"--if they were capable of it. Let them displace the Simons of history.

  But such thoughts only brought on rage. Simon needed to think, to turn this knowledge against them. He tried to concentrate on the wooded hills as the car sped along the river highway. It began to rain, heavily, and the road ahead disappeared in the downpour.

  "I need to make a phone call." Gruber pulled what Simon had assumed was a deep green handkerchief from his breast pocket, tugged it rigid on the drop table between them and punched a number in a keypad in its corner. The handkerchief became a screen. The face of a large pink bird came onto the screen. Its yellow beak ended in a black hook; its eyes were bright green. It took a moment before Simon realized it was another of the artificial images these people liked to project in place of themselves. "May I help you?" it asked.

  "Let me talk to Ms. Overdone," Gruber said.

  The screen wiped, and a woman came on. "Daphne, you look lovely," Gruber said. "Not a day over twenty-three."

&nb
sp; "I'll let that go. You shouldn't call so early in the day."

  "Well it's set up," Gruber said. "You'll meet Vannice at the dance, and sweep him off his feet. Once you get the sperm sample the rest will be up to the doctors."

  "I want to see the money in my account before I get on the train to Connecticut."

  "It's being done as we speak."

  Daphne rolled her eyes. "The things I endure for science."

  "For love, Daphne, for love. And cash."

  Daphne saw Simon out of the corner of her eye. "Who's your handsome friend?"

  "No one you need to worry about, darling. What time does your train arrive at the station?"

  "7:10."

  "I'll pick you up there. Wear white."

  "I'll start off wearing white. Can we get together afterward, Det?"

  "Anytime, anyplace, anyway, Daphne. See you." Gruber touched a key and the phone turned a dusty lavender. He shook it until it went soft, crumpled it up and stuffed it into his breast pocket, where it made a handsome accessory to his jacket.

  "You referred to someone named Vannice," Simon said. "In the prison you also mentioned that name."

  "So?"

  "Dr. Owen Vannice was one of the hostages in Herod's Palace Hotel."

  "Well, Simon, it's a small world. I work for his mother."

  Simon pondered that. "You work for the mother of a man who is going to testify against me. But you're getting me released to the man who is paying for my defense?"

  "What was your impression of Owen Vannice? At one time I used to see a lot of his family. I supposed him to be a little slow. Playing with some kind of slimy animals, down in the basement creating new creatures with his Expando Gene-Splicing Kit."

  "In the hotel, I did not take advantage of my opportunity to murder him."

  "You know, Simon, I'm quite impressed by your English," Gruber commented. "You can read English as well?"

  "They made certain software available to me. I have had a lot of time to practice."

  "You don't object to such modern technology?"

  "Necessity has overcome my scruples."