"Not again," he protested mildly. "Not Oscar Wilde again!"
Kate ignored him and Miriam smiled her sculptured smile, but Gordon
Pa]frey was in the mood to talk.
"We aren't
saying
that Oscar Wilde communicated these words, John.
But
somebody
did -- and the style of some of the stuff is identical
to that of Wilde's early prose -- "
"His
early
prose," Breton interrupted. "That's the point. Let's see --
Wilde died about 1900, right? And this is 1981 -- so in eighty-one years
on the other side, or beyond the veil, or whatever you spiritualists
call it, not only has he failed to develop as a writer, but has even
slipped back to his undergraduate phase."
"Yes, but -- "
"And it isn't lack of practice, because according to what I've read in
those books you lent Kate he's been a favorite with automatic writers
since his death. Wilde must be the only author in history whose output
went up after he was buried." Breton laughed, pleased at finding himself
in that pleasant transient state of drunkenness in which he always felt
able to think and talk twice as fast as when sober.
"You're assuming a one-to-one correspondence between this and any other
plane of existence," Palfrey said. "But it need not be like that."
"It mustn't be. From the data you have about the next plane, it seems to
be peopled by writers who have no paper or pencils, and who spend their
time telepathically projecting drivel down into our plane. And, somehow,
Oscar Wilde has become the stakhanovite -- possibly as a punishment for
writing
De Profundis.
Palfrey smiled patiently. "But we're not
saying
that these . . ."
"Don't argue with him," Kate said. "That's what he wants. John's a
professional atheist, and he's starting to talk too much anyway." She shot
him a look of scorn but overdid it, making herself look like a little
girl for one fleeting second. What an unlikely emotion, Breton thought,
to cause rejuvenation.
"She's right," he said. "The whole structure of my belief crumbled when
I was a kid -- the first crack was the discovery that F.W. Woolworth
was not a local businessman."
Kate lit a cigarette. "He's had ten whiskies. He always pulls that joke
when he's had ten."
And you always pull that one about the ten drinks, Breton thought.
You humorless bitch -- trying to make me sound like a booze-operated
robot. But he remained jovial and talkative, although aware that it was a
reaction against the trauma of his trip. He managed to preserve his good
spirits right through the coffee and sandwiches stage, and accompanied
Kate to the door as she escorted the visitors out to their car.
It was a crisp night in late October, and winter constellations were
beginning to climb up beyond the eastern horizon, a reminder that snow
would soon come marching down from Canada. Feeling warm and relaxed,
Breton lounged in the doorway, smoking his last cigarette of the day while
Kate talked to the Palfreys in the car. Two meteorites burned briefly in
the sky as he smoked -- Journey's end, he thought, welcome to Earth --
and finally the car moved off, crunching and spanging in the gravel while
its headlights raked through the elms along the drive. Kate waved goodbye
and came back into the house, shivering slightly. Breton attempted to
put an ann around her as she passed him in the doorway, but she kept
walking determinedly, and he remembered his earlier waspishness. The
post mortem still had to be held in the small hours, while the bedroom
curtains breathed gently in sleep.
Breton shrugged to show himself how little he cared, then flicked the
cigarette butt out on to the lawn, where it was extinguished by the
dewy grass. He took a final breath of the leaf-scented air and turned
to go inside.
"Don't close the door, John." The voice came from the black-tunneled
shrubbery beside the drive. "I've come to collect my wife. Had you
forgotten?"
"Who's that?" Breton rapped the question out anxiously as the figure
of a tall man came towards the light, but he had already recognized the
voice. The anonymous phone caller. He felt a surge of dismayed anger.
"Don't you know yet, John?" The stranger reached the porch, and slowly
came up the steps. The overhead light suddenly made his identity very
clear.
Breton -- transfixed by a vast and inexplicable fear -- found himself
staring into his own face.
II
Jack Breton discovered a slight shakiness in his legs as he walked up
the steps towards the man called John Breton.
It could, he decided, have been caused by crouching in the draughty,
conspiratorial darkness of the shrubbery for more than an hour. But a
more likely explanation was that he had not been prepared for seeing
Kate again. No amount of forethought or preparation could have cushioned
the impact, he realized. The sound of her voice as she said goodbye to
the visitors seemed to have flooded his nervous system with powerful
harmonics, eliciting new levels of response from his being as a whole,
and from the discrete atoms of which it was composed.
I love you,
whispered every molecule of his body, along a billion enzymic pathways.
I love you,
Kate.
"Who are you?" John Breton demanded abruptly. "What do you want?"
He stood squarely in Jack Breton's path, his face a deep-shadowed mask
of anxiety in the light from the globe that hung above his head.
Jack Breton fingered the automatic pistol in his overcoat pocket, but --
hearing the uncertainty in the other man's voice -- he left the catch
in the safe position. There was no need to deviate from the plan.
"I've already told you what I want, John," he said pleasantly. "And you
must know who I am by this time -- have you never looked in a mirror?"
"But you look like . . ." John Breton allowed the sentence to tail off,
afraid to walk where the words were leading him.
"Let's go indoors," Jack said impatiently. "I'm cold."
He walked forward and was rewarded by the sight of John at once moving
backwards, floundering. Afraid of me, Jack Breton thought in mild surprise.
This being I created in my own image, this creature who changed my name to
John, is afraid of his maker. As he entered the familiar, orange-lit hall,
Jack noticed the richness of the carpet underfoot and the almost-tangible
feel of money about the old house. The work he had done in the library
that day, going through directories and files of local newspapers,
had suggested that John Breton was considerably better off than he
had been nine years ago, but this was even more pleasant than he had
expected. Well done, thou good and faithful servant. . . .
"This is far enough," John Breton said as they reached the spacious
living room. "I would like some explanations."
"Well, good for you,
John."
Jack surveyed the room as he spoke. The furniture was all new to him, but
he remembered the clock and one or two small ornaments. He particularly
approved of the deep, high-backed armchairs which had been chosen with
no consideration other than comfort in mind. They seemed to extend a
welcome to him. Make a mental note, he thought. In spite of the fact that
he experiences zero spatial displacement, the time traveler undergoes
a substantial psychological dislocation which may manifest itself by
the personalization of inanimate objects, e.g. armchairs will extend
welcomes to him. Be careful!
He returned his attention to John Breton, his natural curiosity
reviving now that he was adjusting to the miraculous reality of Kate's
existence. His other self was heavier than he ought to be, and dressed
in expensively tailored slacks, a maroon sports shirt and cashmere
cardigan. Nine years, nine divergent years had made differences, Jack
thought. I don't look as sleek as that, or as well fed -- but my time
is coming.
My
time.
"I'm waiting," John Breton said.
Jack shrugged. "I'd have preferred Kate to be here before I went into
the spiel, but I guess she's gone upstairs . . . ?"
"My wife has gone upstairs." There was a barely noticeable emphasis on
the first two words.
"All right then, John. It's funny, but this is the one part of the whole
business I haven't worked out in advance -- how to tell you. You see, John
-- I . . . am . . . you.
"You mean," John said with deliberate inanity, "I'm not myself?"
"No." He's recovering, Jack Breton thought with reluctant approval, but
he's got to take it seriously from the start. He dug deep into his memory.
"John! When you were thirteen, your cousin Louise stayed at your home
for most of a summer. She was eighteen, well-proportioned. Also she had
a bath, regular as clockwork, every Friday night. One afternoon about
three weeks after she arrived you took a hand drill from the garage,
put a three-thirty-seconds bit in it and drilled a hole in the bathroom
ceiling. You drilled it at the widest part of the big Y-shaped crack
that Dad never got around to fixing, so it wouldn't be noticed.
"Dad had floored the central area of the roof space for storage, and
he had sheeted in the sides, but you found you could move one of the
corner panels aside and get over the bathroom. So you took an interest
in photography that summer, John, and the roof space made an ideal dark
room. Every Friday night -- when Louise was in the bath -- you went up
there into the darkness and soft brown dust. You got over the bathroom
and took off -- "
"
That's enough!
" John Breton took a step forward, pointing with one
finger in baffled accusation. He was trembling slightly.
"Take it easy, John. I'm simply presenting my credentials. Nobody else in
the whole world knows the facts I have just mentioned. The only reason
I know them is the one I have already given you -- I am you.
I
did
those things, and I want you to listen to me."
"I'll have to listen to you now," John said dully. "This has been one
hell of an evening."
"That's better." Jack Breton relaxed a little further. "Do you mind if
I sit down?"
"Go ahead. Do
you
mind if I have a drink?"
"Be my guest." Jack uttered the words naturally and easily, turning their
significance over in his mind. John had been his guest for nine years,
as no man had ever been another's guest before -- but all that was coming
to an end. When they both were seated he leaned forward in the big chair,
making his voice cool, calm and reasonable. A lot depended on how he
went about the task of making the unbelievable seem believable.
"How do you feel about time travel, John?"
John Breton sipped his drink. "I feel it's impossible. Nobody could
travel forward in time to here and now, because if present-day technology
couldn't envisage a time machine, nobody in the past could have built
one. And nobody could travel back from the future to the present,
because the past is unalterable. That's how I feel about time travel."
"How about in the other direction?"
"What other direction?"
"Straight across -- at right angles to the two directions you've
mentioned."
"Oh,
that."
John Breton took another drink, almost seeming to be
enjoying himself. "When I was reading science fiction we didn't really
class that as honest-to-God time travel. That's probability travel."
"All right," Jack said placatingly. "How do you feel about probability
travel?"
"Are you telling me you're from another present? From another time-stream?"
"Yes, John."
"But,
why?
If it were true, what would bring you here?" John Breton
raised the glass to his lips, but did not drink. His eyes were thoughtful.
"Nine years, you said. Is it anything to do with . . . ?"
"I heard voices, John." Kate was standing in the doorway. "Who have you
got with you? Oh . . ."
Jack Breton stood up as she entered the room, and the sight of her
filled his eyes, just as it had on the last night he had seen her alive,
until her image swamped his awareness -- three-dftnensional, glowing,
perfect. Kate's gaze met his for an instant, then darted away again,
and a single star-shell of pleasure burst in his head.
He had reached her already. Without saying a word, he had reached her.
"John?" Her voice was tremulous, uncertain. "John?"
"You'd better sit down, Kate," John Breton said in a thin, cold monotone.
"I think our friend has a story to tell."
"Perhaps Kate should have a drink, too," Jack Breton suggested. "This
is likely to take some time." Kate was watching him with a wariness he
found delicious, and he had to work to keep his voice steady.
She knows,
she knows.
While his other self was pouring her a colorless measure,
he realized he could be in some danger of making an involuntary trip. He
examined his own field of vision and found it clear -- no teichopsia, no
black star slowly sinking, no fortification phenomena. It appeared safe.
Slowly, carefully, he began marshaling his facts, allowing the past nine
years to re-create themselves on the taut canvas of his mind.
III
Kate was walking away down the street, past blazing store windows.
With her silvered wrap drawn tight over the flimsy party dress, and long
legs slimmed even further by needle-heeled sandals, she looked like an
idealized screen version of a gangster's moll. The ambient brilliance from
the stores projected her solidly into his mind, jewel-sharp, and he saw
-- with the wonder of a brand-new discovery -- the tiny blue vein behind
each of her knees. Breton was overwhelmed by a pang of sheer affection.
You can't let Kate walk through the city at night looking like that,
a voice told him urgently, but the alternative was to crawl after her,
to knuckle under. He hesitated, then turned in the opposite direction,
numbed with self-disgust, swearing bitterly.
It was almost two hours later when the police cruiser pulled up outside
the house.
Breton, who had been standing at the window, ran heavy-footed to the door
and dragged it open. There were two detectives, with darkly speculative
eyes, and a backdrop of blue uniformed figures.
One of the detectives flashed a badge. "Mr. John Breton?"
Breton nodded, unable to speak. I'm sorry, Kate, he thought, so sorry --
come back and we'll go to the party.
"I'm Lieutenant Convery. Homicide. Do you mind if I come in?"