7100-VI-10 March 1964 – Cleveland-Apex Bldg.: There was a notice under the door saying that my lease expired next week; otherwise the room looked as it had a moment before. Outside, trees were bare and snow threatened; I hurried, stopping only for contemporary money and a coat, hat, and topcoat I had left there when I leased the room. I hired a car, went to the hospital. It took twenty minutes to bore the nursery attendant to the point where I could swipe the baby without being noticed. We went back to the Apex Building. This dial setting was more involved, as the building did not yet exist in 1945. But I had precalculated it.
0100-VI-20 Sept. 1945 – Cleveland-Skyview Motel:: Field kit, baby, and I arrived in a motel outside town. Earlier I had registered as “Gregory Johnson, Warren, Ohio, ” so we arrived in a room with curtains closed, windows locked, and doors bolted, and the floor cleared to allow for waver as the machine hunts. You can get a nasty bruise from a chair where it shouldn’t be – not the chair, of course, but backlash from the field.
No trouble. Jane was sleeping soundly; I carried her out, put her in a grocery box on the seat of a car I had provided earlier, drove to the orphanage, put her on the steps, drove two blocks to a “service station” (the petroleum-products sort) and phoned the orphanage, drove back in time to see them taking the box inside, kept going and abandoned the car near the motel – walked to it and jumped forward to the Apex Building in 1963.
2200-VI-24 April 1963 – Cleveland-Apex Bldg.: I had cut the time rather fine – temporal accuracy depends on span, except on return to zero. If I had it right, Jane was discovering, out in the park this balmy spring night, that she wasn’t quite as nice a girl as she had thought., I grabbed a taxi to the home of those skinflints, had the hackie wait around a comer while I lurked in shadows.
Presently I spotted them down the street, arms around each other. He took her up on the porch and made a long job of kissing her good-night-longer than I thought. Then she went in and he came down the walk, turned away. I slid into step and hooked an arm in his. — That’s all, son, ” I announced quietly. — I’m back to pick you up. –
“You! ” He gasped and caught his breath.
“Me. Now you know who he is – and after you think it over you’ll know who you are… and if you think hard enough, you’ll figure out who the baby is… and who I am. –
He didn’t answer, he was badly shaken. It’s a shock to have it proved to you that you can’t resist seducing yourself. I took him to the Apex Building and we jumped again.
2300-VIII, 12 Aug. 1985-Sub Rockies Base: I woke the duty sergeant, showed my I. D., told the sergeant to bed my companion down with a happy pill and recruit him in the moming. The sergeant looked sour, but rank is rank, regardless of era; he did what I said-thinking, no doubt, that the next time we met he might be the colonel and I the sergeant. Which can happen in our corps. — What name? — he asked.
I wrote it out. He raised his eyebrows. — Like so, eh? Hmm-”
“You just do your job, Sergeant. — I turned to my companion.
“Son, your troubles are over. You’re about to start the best job a man ever held-and you’ll do well. I know. –
“That you will! ” agreed the sergeant. — Look at me – born in 1917-still around, still young, still enjoying life. — I went back to the jump room, set everything on preselected zero.
2301-V-7 Nov. 1970-NYC -“Pop’s Place”: I came out of the storeroom carrying a fifth of Drambuie to account for the minute I had been gone. My assistant was arguing with the customer who had been playing “I’m My Own Grand-paw! ” I said, “Oh, let him play it, then unplug it. — I was very tired.