Unborn Tomorrow Read online

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  UNBORN TOMORROW

  BY MACK REYNOLDS

  Illustrated by Freas

  _Unfortunately, there was only one thing he could bring back from the wonderful future ... and though he didn't want to ... nevertheless he did...._

  Betty looked up from her magazine. She said mildly, "You're late."

  "Don't yell at me, I feel awful," Simon told her. He sat down at hisdesk, passed his tongue over his teeth in distaste, groaned, fumbled ina drawer for the aspirin bottle.

  He looked over at Betty and said, almost as though reciting, "What Ineed is a vacation."

  "What," Betty said, "are you going to use for money?"

  "Providence," Simon told her whilst fiddling with the aspirin bottle,"will provide."

  "Hm-m-m. But before providing vacations it'd be nice if Providenceturned up a missing jewel deal, say. Something where you could deducethat actually the ruby ring had gone down the drain and was caught inthe elbow. Something that would net about fifty dollars."

  Simon said, mournful of tone, "Fifty dollars? Why not make it fivehundred?"

  "I'm not selfish," Betty said. "All I want is enough to pay me thisweek's salary."

  "Money," Simon said. "When you took this job you said it was the romancethat appealed to you."

  "Hm-m-m. I didn't know most sleuthing amounted to snooping arounddepartment stores to check on the clerks knocking down."

  Simon said, enigmatically, "Now it comes."

  * * * * *

  There was a knock.

  Betty bounced up with Olympic agility and had the door swinging widebefore the knocking was quite completed.

  He was old, little and had bug eyes behind pince-nez glasses. His suitwas cut in the style of yesteryear but when a suit costs two or threehundred dollars you still retain caste whatever the styling.

  Simon said unenthusiastically, "Good morning, Mr. Oyster." He indicatedthe client's chair. "Sit down, sir."

  The client fussed himself with Betty's assistance into the seat,bug-eyed Simon, said finally, "You know my name, that's pretty good.Never saw you before in my life. Stop fussing with me, young lady. Yourad in the phone book says you'll investigate anything."

  "Anything," Simon said. "Only one exception."

  "Excellent. Do you believe in time travel?"

  Simon said nothing. Across the room, where she had resumed her seat,Betty cleared her throat. When Simon continued to say nothing sheventured, "Time travel is impossible."

  "Why?"

  "Why?"

  "Yes, why?"

  Betty looked to her boss for assistance. None was forthcoming. Thereought to be some very quick, positive, definite answer. She said, "Well,for one thing, paradox. Suppose you had a time machine and traveled backa hundred years or so and killed your own great-grandfather. Then howcould you ever be born?"

  "Confound it if I know," the little fellow growled. "How?"

  Simon said, "Let's get to the point, what you wanted to see me about."

  "I want to hire you to hunt me up some time travelers," the old boysaid.

  Betty was too far in now to maintain her proper role of silentsecretary. "Time travelers," she said, not very intelligently.

  The potential client sat more erect, obviously with intent to hold thefloor for a time. He removed the pince-nez glasses and pointed them atBetty. He said, "Have you read much science fiction, Miss?"

  "Some," Betty admitted.

  "Then you'll realize that there are a dozen explanations of theparadoxes of time travel. Every writer in the field worth his salt hasexplained them away. But to get on. It's my contention that within acentury or so man will have solved the problems of immortality andeternal youth, and it's also my suspicion that he will eventually beable to travel in time. So convinced am I of these possibilities that Iam willing to gamble a portion of my fortune to investigate the presencein our era of such time travelers."

  Simon seemed incapable of carrying the ball this morning, so Betty said,"But ... Mr. Oyster, if the future has developed time travel why don'twe ever meet such travelers?"

  Simon put in a word. "The usual explanation, Betty, is that they can'tafford to allow the space-time continuum track to be altered. If, say, atime traveler returned to a period of twenty-five years ago and shotHitler, then all subsequent history would be changed. In that case, thetime traveler himself might never be born. They have to tread mightycarefully."

  Mr. Oyster was pleased. "I didn't expect you to be so well informed onthe subject, young man."

  Simon shrugged and fumbled again with the aspirin bottle.

  * * * * *

  Mr. Oyster went on. "I've been considering the matter for some timeand--"

  Simon held up a hand. "There's no use prolonging this. As I understandit, you're an elderly gentleman with a considerable fortune and yourealize that thus far nobody has succeeded in taking it with him."

  Mr. Oyster returned his glasses to their perch, bug-eyed Simon, but thennodded.

  Simon said, "You want to hire me to find a time traveler and in somemanner or other--any manner will do--exhort from him the secret ofeternal life and youth, which you figure the future will havediscovered. You're willing to pony up a part of this fortune of yours,if I can deliver a bona fide time traveler."

  "Right!"

  Betty had been looking from one to the other. Now she said, plaintively,"But where are you going to find one of these characters--especially ifthey're interested in keeping hid?"

  The old boy was the center again. "I told you I'd been considering itfor some time. The _Oktoberfest_, that's where they'd be!" He seemedelated.

  Betty and Simon waited.

  "The _Oktoberfest_," he repeated. "The greatest festival the world hasever seen, the carnival, _feria_, _fiesta_ to beat them all. Every yearit's held in Munich. Makes the New Orleans Mardi gras look like aquilting party." He began to swing into the spirit of his description."It originally started in celebration of the wedding of some localprince a century and a half ago and the Bavarians had such a bang-uptime they've been holding it every year since. The Munich breweries doup a special beer, _Marzenbraeu_ they call it, and each brewery opens atremendous tent on the fair grounds which will hold five thousandcustomers apiece. Millions of liters of beer are put away, hundreds ofthousands of barbecued chickens, a small herd of oxen are roasted wholeover spits, millions of pair of _weisswurst_, a very special sausage,millions upon millions of pretzels--"

  "All right," Simon said. "We'll accept it. The _Oktoberfest_ is onewhale of a wingding."

  * * * * *

  "Well," the old boy pursued, into his subject now, "that's where they'dbe, places like the _Oktoberfest_. For one thing, a time travelerwouldn't be conspicuous. At a festival like this somebody with a strangeaccent, or who didn't know exactly how to wear his clothes correctly, orwas off the ordinary in any of a dozen other ways, wouldn't be noticed.You could be a four-armed space traveler from Mars, and you stillwouldn't be conspicuous at the _Oktoberfest_. People would figure theyhad D.T.'s."

  "But why would a time traveler want to go to a--" Betty began.

  "Why not! What better opportunity to study a people than when they arein their cups? If _you_ could go back a few thousand years, the thingsyou would wish to see would be a Roman Triumph, perhaps the Rites ofDionysus, or one of Alexander's orgies. You wouldn't want to wander upand down the streets of, say, Athens while nothing was going on,particularly when you might be revealed as a suspicious character notbeing able to speak the language, not knowing how to wear the clothesand not familiar with the city's
layout." He took a deep breath. "Noma'am, you'd have to stick to some great event, both for the sake ofactual interest and for protection against being unmasked."

  The old boy wound it up. "Well, that's the story. What are your rates?The _Oktoberfest_ starts on Friday and continues for sixteen days. Youcan take the plane to Munich, spend a week there and--"

  Simon was shaking his head. "Not interested."

  As soon as Betty had got her jaw back into place, she glaredunbelievingly at him.

  Mr. Oyster was taken aback