“We’ll talk contract with you, Fishbein,” somebody said.
” . . . call for some new regulations,” somebody said.
” . . . dred thousand cees, first network rights.”
” . . . era of the Servo in the arena is over . . . ”
” . . . hear what Malone says about this. Wow!”
“Malone,” I heard my voice say, like a boot coming out of mud. “The cr . . . crook. It was him . . . put the Sullivan . . . up to it . . . ”
“Up to nothing, Barney,” Gully was bending over me. “That was J. J. hisself in that Servo! And here’s the payoff. He registered the Satisfaction in his own name—and of course, every fighter in his stable is acting in his name, legally. So when you met Mysterious Marvin and knocked him on his duff you satisfied his claim. You’re in the clear, kid. You can relax. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Oh, Barney!” It was a new voice, a nice soft little squeal of a girl-voice. A neat little Org face with a turned-up nose zeroed in on me, with a worried look in the big brown eyes.
“Julie! Where—I mean, how . . . ?”
“I was there, Barney. I see all your fights, even if—even if I don’t approve. And today—oh, Barney, you were so brave, so marvelous, out there alone, against that machine . . . ” She sighed and nestled her head against my shoulder.
“Gully,” I said. “Exactly how long have I got to stay in this place?”
“The Servo-tech—I mean the doc—says a week anyway.”
“Set up a wedding for a week from today.”
* * *
Julie jumped and stared at me.
“Oh, Barney! But you—you know what I said . . . about those zombies . . . ”
“I know.”
“But, Barney . . . ” Gully didn’t know whether to cry or grin. “You mean . . . ?”
“Sell my Servos,” I said. “The whole wardrobe. My days of being a pair of TV eyes peeking out of a walking dummy and kidding myself I’m alive are over.”
“Yeah, but Barney—a guy with your ideas about what’s fun—like skiing, and riding the jetboards, and surfing, and sky-diving—you can’t take the risks! You only got the one Org body!”
“I found out a couple of things out there tonight, Gully. It takes a live appetite to make a meal a feast. From now on, whatever I do, it’ll be me doing it. Clocking records is okay, I guess, but there’s some things that it takes an Org to handle.”
“Like what?” Gully yelled, and went on with a lot more in the same vein. I wasn’t listening, though. I was too busy savoring a pair of warm, soft, live lips against mine.
Time Trap
PROLOGUE
1
Machinist’s Mate Second Class Joe Acosta, on duty in the deckhouse of the Coast Guard cutter Hampton, squinted across the dazzling waters of Tampa Bay at the ungainly vessel wallowing in the light sea half a mile off the port bow.
“What the heck is that, skipper?” He addressed the lieutenant standing beside him with binoculars trained on the spectacle.
“Two-master; odd-looking high stern. Sails hanging in rags. Looks like she’s been in a stiff blow,” the officer said. “Let’s take a closer look.”
The cutter changed course, swinging in a wide arc to approach the square-rigged vessel. At close range, Acosta saw the weathered timbers of the clumsy hull, where scraps of scarlet paint and gilt still clung. Clustered barnacles and trailing seaweed marked the waterline. The power boat passed under the ship’s stern at a distance of fifty feet; ornate letters almost obliterated by weathering spelled out the name Cucaracha.
As the boat throttled back, a wrinkled brown face appeared at the rail above; worried coal-black eyes looked into Acosta’s. Other men appeared beside the first, clad in rags, uniformly pockmarked, gap-toothed, and unshaven.
“Skipper, this must be a load of them Cuban refugees,” Acosta hazarded. “But how’d they get this far without being spotted?”
The officer shook his head. “They must be making a movie,” he said. “This can’t be for real.”
“You ever seen a tub like that before?” Acosta inquired.
“Only in the history books.”
“I see what you mean. It’s kind of like the Bounty they got anchored over at the pier at St. Pete.”
“Something like that. Only this is a galleon, late sixteenth-century type. Portuguese, from the flag.”
“Looks like somebody could have told us about it,” Acosta said. “Hey, you on deck!” He cupped his hands and shouted to the faces above. “If that tub draws more than two fathoms, you got problems!” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Shoal waters!” he added.
The man who had first appeared called out something in a hoarse voice.
“Hey,” Acosta said. “I was right. He’s talking some kind o’ Spanish.” He cupped his hands again.
“¿Quién son ustedes? ¿Qué pasa?” The man on deck shouted at some length, making the sign of the cross as he did.
“What did he say?” the officer inquired.
Acosta shook his head. “He talks funny, skipper. He must think we’re part of the movie.”
“We’ll go aboard and take a look.”
An hour later, a line aboard the derelict, the cutter headed for the Port Tampa quarantine wharf.
“What do you think?” Joe Acosta asked, eyeing the skipper sidelong.
“I think we’ve got a galleon crewed by thirteen illiterate Portuguese in tow,” the officer snapped. “Outside of that, I’m not thinking.”
2
At 10:15 A.M., as was her unalterable custom, Mrs. L. B. (Chuck) Withers put on her hat, checked her hemline in the front-hall mirror, and set out on the ten-minute walk into town. She passed the long-defunct service station at the bend, walking briskly, head up, back straight, breathed in for four paces, out for four, a simple routine to which she ascribed full credit for the remarkable youthfulness of her thirty-six-year-old figure.
A minute or two after passing the station, Mrs. Withers slowed, sensing some indefinable strangeness in the aspect of the road ahead. She had long ago ceased to notice her surroundings on her walks, but now an unfamiliar sign caught her eye ahead:
BRANTVILLE—1 MILE
It was curious, she thought, that they should bother to erect a new sign here—especially an erroneous one. Her house was precisely one half-mile from town; it couldn’t be more than a few hundred yards from here to the city limits. Closer, she saw that the sign was not new; the paint was chalky and faded, peppered by a passing marksman with a pair of rust-edged pits. She looked around uneasily; now that she noticed, this stretch didn’t look precisely familiar, somehow. There—that big sweetgum tree with the 666 sign—surely she would have noticed that . . .
She hurried on, eager for a cheery glimpse of the Coca-Cola billboard around the gentle curve of the road. Instead she saw a white-painted building, patchily visible through the foliage. The brick chimney had a curiously familiar look. She pressed on, passed the shelter of the line of tall poplars—and halted, staring indignantly at her own house. She had left it, walking east—and now she was approaching it from the west. It was preposterous—impossible!
Mrs. Withers settled her hat firmly on her head. Very well: daydreaming, she had taken some turn (not that she had ever seen any branching road between home and town) that had brought her in a circle back to her own door. It was a nonsensical mistake, and the widow of L. B. Withers had no patience with nonsense, which was best dealt with by ignoring it. Grasping her handbag in both hands as one would a set of reins, she marched determinedly past the front gate.
Five minutes later, with a mounting apprehension stirring beneath her ribs, she approached a sign planted by the roadside:
BRANTVILLE—1 MILE
For a moment she stared at the letters; then she whirled and marched back the way she had come. At her gate, she caught at the post, breathing hard, collecting herself. The sight of the familiar front porch with the broken lattice that Mr. Withers had always been going to fix but somehow never had gotten around to calmed her. She took a deep breath and forced her respiration back to normal. She had almost made a fool of herself, running into the house and telephoning the sheriff with an hysterical tale of mixed-up roads. Hmmph! Interesting gossip that would make in town, with half of the old lechers there already smirking lewdly at her as they made their sly remarks about women who lived alone. Very well, she’d gotten confused, twice taken a wrong turning, even if she hadn’t noticed any place where a body could take a wrong turning. This time she’d watch every step of the way, and if she arrived at the post office half an hour later than usual, she dared anybody to make a remark about it!