Short Fiction by Mack Reynolds (ready to read books .TXT) 📕

“Some,” Betty admitted.

“Then you’ll realize that there are a dozen explanations of the paradoxes of time travel. Every writer in the field worth his salt has explained them away. But to get on. It’s my contention that within a century or so man will have solved the problems of immortality and eternal youth, and it’s also my suspicion that he will eventually be able to travel in time. So convinced am I of these possibilities that I am willing to gamble a portion of my fortune to investigate the presence in 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’t we ever meet such travelers?”

Simon put in a word. “The usual explanation, Betty, is that they can’t afford to allow the space-time continuum track to be altered. If, say, a time traveler returned to a period of twenty-five years ago and shot Hitler, then all subsequent history would be changed. In that case, the time traveler himself might never be born. They have to tread mighty carefully.”

Mr. Oyster was pleased. “I didn’t expect you to be so well informed on the subject, young man.”

Simon shrugged and fumbled again with the aspirin bottle.

Mr. Oyster went on. “I’ve been considering the matter for some time and⁠—”

Simon held up a hand. “There’s no use prolonging this. As I understand it, you’re an elderly gentleman with a considerable fortune and you realize that thus far nobody has succeeded in taking it with him.”

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

Simon said, “You want to hire me to find a time traveler and in some manner or other⁠—any manner will do⁠—exhort from him the secret of eternal life and youth, which you figure the future will have discovered. 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 if they’re interested in keeping hid?”

The old boy was the center again. “I told you I’d been considering it for some time. The Oktoberfest, that’s where they’d be!” He seemed elated.

Betty and Simon waited.

“The Oktoberfest,” he repeated. “The greatest festival the world has ever seen, the carnival, feria, fiesta to beat them all. Every year it’s held in Munich. Makes the New Orleans Mardi gras look like a quilting party.” He began to swing into the spirit of his description. “It originally started in celebration of the wedding of some local prince a century and a half ago and the Bavarians had such a bang-up time they’ve been holding it every year since. The Munich breweries do up a special beer, Marzenbräu they call it, and each brewery opens a tremendous tent on the fair grounds which will hold five thousand customers apiece. Millions of liters of beer are put away, hundreds of thousands of barbecued chickens, a small herd of oxen are roasted whole over 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 one whale of a wingding.”

“Well,” the old boy pursued, into his subject now, “that’s where they’d be, places like the Oktoberfest. For one thing, a time traveler wouldn’t be conspicuous. At a festival like this somebody with a strange accent, or who didn’t know exactly how to wear his clothes correctly, or was 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 still wouldn’t be conspicuous at the Oktoberfest. People would figure they had 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 are in their cups? If you could go back a few thousand years, the things you would wish to see would be a Roman Triumph, perhaps the Rites of Dionysus, or one of Alexander’s orgies. You wouldn’t want to wander up and down the streets of, say, Athens while nothing was going on, particularly when you might be revealed as a suspicious character not being able to speak the language, not knowing how to wear the clothes and not familiar with the city’s layout.” He took a deep breath. “No ma’am, you’d have to stick to some great event, both for the sake of actual 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. You can 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 glared unbelievingly at him.

Mr. Oyster was taken aback himself. “See here, young man, I realize this isn’t an ordinary assignment, however, as I said, I am willing to risk a considerable portion of my fortune⁠—”

“Sorry,” Simon said. “Can’t be done.”

“A hundred dollars a day plus expenses,” Mr. Oyster said quietly. “I like the fact that you already seem to have some interest and knowledge of the matter. I liked the way you knew my name when I walked in the door; my picture doesn’t appear often in the papers.”

“No go,” Simon said, a sad quality in his voice.

“A fifty-thousand dollar bonus if you bring me a time traveler.”

“Out of the question,” Simon said.

“But why?” Betty wailed.

“Just for laughs,” Simon told the two of them sourly, “suppose I tell you a funny story. It goes like this:”

I got a thousand dollars from Mr. Oyster (Simon began) in the way of an advance, and leaving him with Betty who was making out a receipt, I hustled back to the apartment and packed a bag. Hell, I’d wanted a vacation anyway, this was a