Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley (29 page)

“I wouldn't dream of going any further,” Barthold said.

“And the policy contains the usual double indemnity clause. Do you understand its function and conditions?”

“I believe so,” answered Barthold, who knew it word for word.

“All is in order, then. Sign right here. And here. Thank you, sir.”

“Thank
you
,” said Barthold. And he really meant it.

Barthold returned to his office. He was sales manager for the Alpro Manufacturing Company (Toys for All the Ages). He announced his intention to leave at once on a sales tour of the Past.

“Our sales in time are simply not what they should be,” he said. “I'm going back there myself and take a personal hand in the selling.”

“Marvelous!” cried Mr. Carlisle, the president of Alpro. “I've been hoping for this for a long time, Everett.”

“I know you have, Mr. Carlisle. Well, sir, I came to the decision just recently. Go back there yourself, I decided, and find out what's going on. Went out and made my preparations, and now I'm ready to leave.”

Mr. Carlisle patted him on the shoulder. “You're the best salesman Alpro ever had, Everett. I'm very glad you decided to go.”

“I am, too, Mr. Carlisle.”

“Give 'em hell! And by the way—” Mr. Carlisle grinned slyly—”I've got an address in Kansas City, 1895, that you might be interested in. They just don't build 'em that way any more. And in San Francisco, 1840, I know a—”

“No, thank you, sir,” Barthold said.

“Strictly business, eh, Everett?”

“Yes, sir,” Barthold said, with a virtuous smile. “Strictly business.”

Everything was in order now. Barthold went home and packed and gave his wife her last instructions.

“Remember,” he told her, “when the time comes, act surprised, but don't simulate a nervous breakdown. Be confused, not psychotic.”

“I
know
,” she said. “Do you think I'm stupid or something?”

“No, dear. It's just that you
do
have a tendency to wring every bit of emotion out of situations. Too little would be wrong. So would too much.”

“Honey,” said Mrs. Barthold in a very small voice.

“Yes?”

“Do you suppose I could buy one little ruumstone now? Just one to sort of keep me company until—”

“No! Do you want to give the whole thing away? Damn it all, Mavis—”

“All right. I was only asking. Good luck, darling.”

“Thank you, darling.”

They kissed.

And Barthold left.

He reclaimed his brown suitcase from the public storage box. Then he took a heli to the main showroom of Temporal Motors. After due consideration, he bought a Class A Unlimited Flipper and paid for it in cash.

“You'll never regret this, sir,” said the salesman, removing the price tag from the glittering machine. “Plenty of power in this baby! Double impeller. Full control in all years. No chance of being caught in stasis in a Fipper.”

“Fine,” Barthold said. “I'll just get in and—”

“Let me help you with those suitcases, sir. You understand that there is a federal tax based upon your temporal mileage?”

“I know,” Barthold said, carefully stowing his brown suitcase in the back of the Flipper. “Thanks a lot. I'll just get in and—”

“Right, sir. The time clock is set at zero and will record your jumps. Here is a list of time zones proscribed by the government. Another list is pasted to the dashboard. They include all major war and disaster areas, as well as Paradox Points. There is a federal penalty for entering a proscribed area. Any such entry will show on the time clock.”

“I know all this.” Barthold suddenly was very nervous. The salesman couldn't suspect, of course. But why was he going on gabbling so about breaches of the law?

“I am required to tell you the regulations,” the salesman said cheerfully. “Now, sir, in addition, there is a thousand-year limit on time jumps. No one is allowed beyond that, except with written permission from the State Department.”

“A very proper precaution,” Barthold said, “and one which my insurance company has already advised me of.”

“Then that takes care of everything. Pleasant journey, sir! You'll find your Flipper the perfect vehicle for business or pleasure. Whether your destination is the rocky roads of Mexico, 1932, or the damp tropics of Canada, 2308, your Flipper will see you through.”

Barthold smiled woodenly, shook the salesman's hand, and entered the Flipper. He closed the door, adjusted his safety belt, started the motor. Leaning forward, teeth set, he calibrated his jump.

Then he punched the send-off switch.

A gray nothingness surrounded him. Barthold had a moment of absolute panic. He fought it down and experienced a thrill of fierce elation.

At last, he was on his way to fortune!

Impenetrable grayness surrounded the Flipper like a faint and endless fog. Barthold thought of the years slipping by, formless and without end, gray world, gray universe ...

But there was no time for philosophical thoughts. Barthold unlocked the small brown suitcase and removed a sheaf of typed papers. The papers, gathered for him by a temporal investigation agency, contained a complete history of the Barthold family, down to its earliest origins.

He had spent a long time studying that history. His plans required a Barthold. But not just
any
Barthold. He needed a male Barthold, thirty-eight years old, unmarried, out of touch with his family, with no close friends and no important job. If possible, with no job at all.

He needed a Barthold, who, if he suddenly vanished, would never be missed, never searched for.

With those specifications, Barthold had been able to cut thousands of Bartholds out of his list. Most male Bartholds were married by the age of thirty-eight. Some hadn't lived that long. Others, single and unattached at thirty-eight, had good friends and strong family ties. Some, out of contact with family and friends, were men whose disappearance would be investigated.

After a good deal of culling, Barthold was left with a mere handful. These he would check, in the hope of finding one who suited all his requirements ...

If
such a man existed, he thought, and quickly banished the thought from his mind.

After a while, the grayness dissolved. He looked out and saw that he was on a cobblestone street. An odd, high-sided automobile chugged past him, driven by a man in a straw hat.

He was in New York, 1912.

The first man on his list was Jack Barthold, known to his friends as Bully Jack, a journeyman printer with a wandering eye and a restless foot. Jack had deserted his wife and three children in Cheyenne in 1902, with no intention of returning. For Barthold's purposes, this made him as good as single. Bully Jack had served a hitch with General Pershing, then returned to his trade. He drifted from print shop to print shop, never staying long. Now, at the age of thirty-eight, he was working somewhere in New York.

Barthold started at the Battery and began hunting his way through New York's print shops. At the eleventh one, on Water Street, he located his man.

“You want Jack Barthold?” an old master printer asked him. “Sure, he's in the back. Hey, Jack! Fellow to see you!”

Barthold's pulse quickened. A man was coming toward him, out of the dark recesses of the shop. The man approached, scowling.

“I'm Jack Barthold,” he said. “Whatcha want?”

Barthold looked at his relative and sadly shook his head. This Barthold obviously would not do.

“Nothing,” he said, “nothing at all.” He turned quickly and left the shop.

Bully Jack, five foot eight inches tall and weighing two hundred and ninety pounds, scratched his head.

“Now what in hell was all that about?” he asked.

The old master printer shrugged his shoulders.

Everett Barthold returned to his Flipper and reset the controls. A pity, he told himself, but a fat man would never fit into his plans.

His next stop was Memphis, 1869. Dressed in an appropriate costume, Barthold went to the Dixie Belle Hotel and inquired at the desk for Ben Bartholder.

“Well, suh,” said the courtly white-haired old man behind the desk, “his key's in, so I reckon he's out. You might find him in the corner saloon with the other trashy carpetbaggers.”

Barthold let the insult pass and went to the saloon.

It was early evening, but the gaslights were already blazing. Someone was strumming a banjo, and the long mahogany bar was crowded.

“Where could I find Ben Bartholder?” Barthold asked a bartender.

“Ovah theah,” the bartender said, “with the other Yankee drummers.”

Barthold walked over to a long table at one end of the saloon. It was crowded with flashily dressed men and painted women. The men were obviously Northern salesmen, loud, self-confident, and demanding. The women were Southerners. But that was their business, Barthold decided.

As soon as he reached the table, he spotted his man. There was no mistaking Ben Bartholder.

He looked exactly like Everett Barthold.

And that was the vital characteristic Barthold was looking for.

“Mr. Bartholder,” he said, “might I have a word with you in private?”

“Why not?” said Ben Bartholder.

Barthold led the way to a vacant table. His relative sat opposite him, staring intently.

“Sir,” said Ben, “there is an uncanny resemblance between us.”

“Indeed there is,” replied Barthold. “It's part of the reason I'm here.”

“And the other part?”

“I'll come to that presently. Would you care for a drink?”

Barthold ordered, noticing that Ben kept his right hand in his lap, out of sight. He wondered if that hand held a derringer. Northerners had to be wary in these Reconstructionist days.

After the drinks were served, Barthold said, “I'll come directly to the point. Would you be interested in acquiring a rather large fortune?”

“What man wouldn't?”

“Even if it involved a long and arduous journey?”

“I've come all the way from Chicago,” Ben said. “I'll go farther.”

“And if it comes to breaking a few laws?”

“You'll find Ben Bartholder ready for anything, sir, if there's some profit to it. But who are you and what is your proposition?”

“Not here,” Barthold said. “Is there some place where we can be assured of privacy?”

“My hotel room.”

“Let's go, then.”

Both men stood up. Barthold glanced at Ben's right hand and gasped.

Benjamin Bartholder had no right hand.

“Lost it at Vicksburg,” explained Ben, seeing Barthold's shocked stare. “It doesn't matter. I'll take on any man in the world with one hand and a stump—and lick him!”

“I'm sure of it,” Barthold said a little wildly. “I admire your spirit, sir. Wait here a moment. I—I'll be right back.”

Barthold hurried out of the saloon's swinging doors and went directly to his Flipper. A pity, he thought, setting the controls. Benjamin Bartholder would have been perfect.

But a maimed man wouldn't fit into his plan.

The next jump was to Prussia, 1676. With a hypnoed knowledge of German and clothes of suitable shape and hue, he walked the deserted streets of Konigsberg, looking for Hans Baerthaler.

It was midday, but the streets were strangely, eerily deserted. Barthold walked and finally encountered a monk.

“Baerthaler?” mused the monk. “Oh, you mean old Otto the tailor! He lives now in Ravensburg, good sir.”

“That must be the father,” Barthold said. “I seek Hans Baerthaler, the son.”

“Hans ... of course!” The monk nodded vigorously, then gave Barthold a quizzical look. “But are you sure that's the man you want?”

“Quite sure,” Barthold said. “Could you direct me to him?”

“You can find him at the cathedral,” said the monk. “Come, I'm going there myself.”

Barthold followed the monk, wondering if his information could be wrong. The Baerthaler he sought wasn't a priest. He was a mercenary soldier who had fought all over Europe. His type would never be found at a cathedral—unless, Barthold thought with a shudder, Baerthaler had unreportedly acquired religion.

Fervently he prayed that this wasn't so. It would ruin everything.

“Here we are, sir,” the monk said, stopping in front of a noble, soaring structure. “And there is Hans Baerthaler.”

Barthold looked. He saw a man sitting on the cathedral steps, a man dressed all in rags. In front of him was a shapeless old hat and within the hat were two copper coins and a crust of bread.

“A beggar,” Barthold grunted disgustedly. Still, perhaps ...

He looked closer and noticed the blank, vacuous expression in the beggar's eyes, the slack jaw, the twisted, leering lips.

“A great pity,” the monk said. “Hans Baerthaler received a head wound fighting against the Swedes at Fehrbellin and never recovered his senses. A terrible pity.”

Barthold nodded, looking around at the empty cathedral square, the deserted streets.

“Where is everyone?” he asked.

“Why, sir, surely you must know! Everyone has fled Konigsberg except me and him. It is the Black Plague!”

With a shudder, Barthold turned and raced back through the empty streets, to his Flipper, his antibiotics, and to any other year but this one.

With a heavy heart and a sense of impending failure, Barthold journeyed again down the years, to London, 1595. At Little Boar Taverne near Great Hertford Cross, he made inquiry of one Thomas Barthal.

“And what would ye be wanting Barthal for?” asked the publican, in English so barbarous that Barthold could barely make it out.

“I have business with him,” said Barthold in his hypnoed Old English.

“Have you indeed?” The publican glanced up and down at Barthold's ruffed finery. “Have you really now?”