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I said, "I think he wanted to be caught. We got him at a point where he
was still conscious of what was happening to himself."
"If he ever does get his hands on another timebelt," Danny asked, "he
could come back and rescue himself, couldn't he?"
I nodded. "That's partly why it was so hard to trap him. We had to get
him into a timeline where he had no foreknowledge of where he was going,
otherwise he would have jumped ahead to help himself against us. We wouldn't
even have known about him if he hadn't kept coming farther and farther back
into the past; one of us must have eventually recognized what was happening
and gone for treatment, then come after this one who was still rampaging
around. That's when I was called in to help. We had to deny him any chance
to look into his own future until we could get the belt off him. The fact
that he hasn't been rescued yet is a pretty good sign that this is the end
of the line for this variant."
Danny grinned. "Well, just the fact that we're standing here talking
about it proves that."
"Uh-huh," I said. I put my hand on his shoulder.
"I'm from a line where they caught it in me before it got
this far. I never went through that." I pointed at the
glass. "You, you're a variant too. You're from even earlier.
Neither of us is in there. He could be incurable and if that's the
case, then he has to stay in there. Forever. He and I mean all of us has to
be either completely safe, or the timebelt must be held beyond his reach.
The consequences " I didn't have to finish the sentence.
Danny bit his lip. "You're right, of course. It's just that I don't
like seeing him there."
"It's for his own good," I said. "More important, it's
for our good. If time travel is the ultimate personal freedom, then
it's also the ultimate personal responsibility." "I guess so," he said and
turned away from the glass.
I didn't add anything to that and we left the hospital for the last
time.
* * *
Today President Robert F. Kennedy announced that
"in response to recent discoveries, the United States is
initiating a high-priority research program to investigate
the possibilities of travel through time."
So in order to protect myself (and my one-man monopoly), I had to go
back and unkill Sirhan Sirhan. Dammit.
The "recent discoveries" he was referring to were some unfortunate
anachronisms which I seem to have left in the past.
I thought I had been more careful, but apparently I haven't. One of the
Pompeiian artifacts in the British Museum has definitely been identified as
a fossilized Coca-Cola bottle from the Atlanta, Georgia, bottling plant.
Well, I never said I was neat. . . .
I don't remember dropping the Coke bottle, but if it's there, I must
have. Unless some other version of me left it there
That is possible. The more I bounce around time,
the more versions of me there are; many of us seem to be
overlapping, but I have observed Dans and Dons doing
things that I never have or never will at least I don't
intend to so if they exist in this timeline, they must be
other versions, just "passing through."
Either they're around to react to me, or I'm supposed to react to them.
Or both. Certain fluxes must keep occurring, I guess I assume there are
mathematical formulae for expressing them, but I'm no mathematician which
necessitate two or more versions of myself coming into contact: such as the
Don who came back through time to warn me against winning three million
dollars at the race track on May 20.
That one was a situation where three versions of me had to exist
simultaneously in one world: Dan, Don, and ultra-Don (who was excising
himself). Other situations have been more complex; the more complex I
become, the more me's there are in this world.
The whole process is evolutionary. Every time Daniel Eakins eliminates
a timeline, he's removing a nonviable one and replacing it with one that
suits him better. The world changes and develops, always working itself
toward some unknown utopia of his own personal design.
My needs and desires keep changing, so does the world. (I must be about
thirty now. I have no way of keeping track, but I look about that age.) I
have lived in worlds dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure sexual fantasies
come true. I had lived in other worlds too, harsher ones, for the sense of
adventure. World War II was my private party.
But always, whenever I create a specialized world, I make a point of
doing it very, very carefully with one or two easily reversed changes.
I do not want to get too far from home meaning
my own timeline. I do not want to get lost among alternate worlds with
no way to get back and no way to find out what changes I made to create that
alternate world.
So I make my changes one at a time and double-
check each one before introducing another. If I decide I
do not like a world, I will know exactly how to excise it. (I thought I
had done right when I kidnapped the baby
Hitler and left him twenty years away from his point of origin, but
that had serious repercussions on the world of 1975, so I had to put the
baby back. Instead I let Hitler be assassinated by his own generals in 1939.
Much neater all around.)
For a while I was on an anti-assassination kick. I have had the unique
pleasure of tapping Lee Harvey Oswald on the shoulder (Yes, I know there
were people who had doubts about who did it but I was there; I know it was
Oswald) just before he would have pulled the trigger. Then I blew his head
off. (John Wilkes Booth, James Earl Ray, and Sirhan Sirhan were similarly
startled. In two cases, though, I had to go back and excise my removal of
the assassins. I didn't like the resultant worlds. Some of our heroes serve
us better dead than alive.)
Once I created a world where Jesus Christ never existed. He went out
into the desert to fast and he never came back.
The twentieth century I returned to was different.
Alien.
The languages were different, the clothing styles, the maps,
everything. The cities were smaller; the buildings were shorter and the
streets were narrower. There were fewer cars and they seemed ugly and
inefficient. There were slave traders in the city that would have been New
York. There were temples to Gods I didn't recognize. Everything was wrong.
I could have been on another planet. The culture was incomprehensible.
I went back and talked myself out of eliminating Jesus Christ.
Look. I confess to no great love for organized religion. The idea of
Christianity (with a capital C) leaves me cold. Jesus was only an ordinary
human being, I know that for a fact, and everything that's been done in his
name has been a sham. It's been other people using his name for their own
purposes.
But I don't dare excise that part of my world.
I might be able to make a good case for Christianity
if I wanted. After all, the birth of the Christian idea and
its resultant spread throughout the Western Hemisphere
was a significant step upward in human consciousness
the placing of a cause, a higher goal, above the goal of
oneself, to create the kingdom of heaven to be created on
Earth. And so on.
But I also know that Christianity has held back any further advances in
human consciousness for the past thousand years. And for the past century
itТs been in direct conflict with its illegitimate offspring, Communism
(again with a capital C). Both ask the individual to sacrifice his
self-interest to the higher goals of the organization. (Which is okay by me
as long as it's voluntary; but as soon as either becomes too big and takes
on that damned capital C- they stop asking for cooperation and start
demanding it.)
Any higher states of human enlightenment have been sacrificed between
these two monoliths. So why am I so determined to preserve the Church?
Because, more than any other force in history, it has created the
culture of which I am a product. If I eliminate the Church, then I eliminate
the only culture in which I am a native. I become, literally, a man without
a world.
Presumably there are worlds that are better than
this one, but if I create them, it must be carefully, because I have to
live in them too. I will be a part of whatever world I create, so I cannot
be haphazard with them.
Just as a time-traveling Daniel Eakins keeps evolving toward a more and
more inevitable version of himself, then so does the world he creates. It's
a pretty stable world, especially in the years between 1950 and 2020. Every
so often it needs a "dusting and cleaning" to keep it that way, but it's a
pretty good world.
Just as I keep excising those of me which tend to extremes, so am I
excising those worlds which do not suit me. I experiment, but I always come
back.
I guess I'm basically a very conservative person.
* * *
Once in a while I wonder about the origins of the
timebelt. Where did it come from?
Who built it and why?
I have a theory about it, but there's no way to check
for sure. Just as I am unable to return to the timeline of
my origin, so is the timebelt unable to return to its. All I
can do is hypothesize . . .
But figure it this way: At some point in some timeline, somebody
invents a time machine. Somebody. Anybody. Makes no difference, just as long
as it gets invented.
Well, that's a pretty powerful weapon. The ultimate weapon. Sooner or
later some power-hungry individual is going to realize that. Possession and
use of the timebelt is a way for a man to realize his every dream. He can be
king of the world. He can be king of any world every world!
Naturally, as soon as he can, he's going to try to implement his ideas.
The first thing he'll do is excise the world in which the timebelt was
invented, so no one else will have a belt and be able to come after him.
Then he'll start playing around in time. He'll start rewriting his own life.
He'll start creating new versions of himself; he'll start evolving himself
across a variety of timelines.
Am I the trans-lineal beneficiary of that person?
Or maybe the timebelt began another way
It looks like a manufactured product, but very rugged. Could it have
been built for military uses? Could some no longer existent nation have
planned to rule throughout history by some vast timebelt-supported
dictatorship? Am I the descendant of a fugitive who found a way to excise
that tyranny?
Or and this is the most insane of all is it that somewhere there's a
company that's manufacturing and selling timebelts like transistor radios?
And anyone who wants one just goes to his nearby department store, plunks
$23.95 down on the counter, and gets all his dreams fulfilled?
Crazy, isn't it?
But possible.
As far as the home timeline is concerned, all those people using
timebelts have simply disappeared. As far as each subjective traveler knows,
he's rewriting all of time. It makes no difference either way; the number of
alternate universes is infinite.
The more I think about it, the more likely that latter possibility
seems.
Consider it's the far future. You've almost got utopia the only thing
that keeps every man from realizing all of his dreams is the overpopulation
of the planet Earth. So you start selling timebelts you give them away
pretty soon every man is a king and the home world is depopulated to a
comfortable level. The only responsibility you need to worry about is
policing yourself, not letting schizoid versions of yourself run around your
timeline. (Oh, you could, I suppose, but could you sleep nights knowing
there was a madman running loose who wanted to kill you?) The reason is
obvious you want to keep your own timelines stable, don't you? Is that where
it started?
Is that where Uncle Jim came from? Did he buy himself a timebelt and
excise the world that created it? I don't know.
I suspect, though, that a timebelt never gets too far from the base
timeline, and that the user-generated differences in the timelines are
generally within predictable limits.
Because the instructions are in English.
Wherever it was manufactured, it was an English-
speaking world. With all that implies. History. Morals.
Culture. Religion. (Perhaps it was my home timeline where the belt
began, perhaps just a few years in my future.)
Obviously the belt was intended for people who could read and
understand its instructions. Otherwise, you could kill yourself. Or worse.
You could send yourself on a one-way trip to eternity. (Read the special
cautions.)
If the average user is like me, he's too lazy to learn a new language
(especially one that might disappear forever with his very next jump), so
anyone with a timebelt is likely to keep himself generally within the
confines of his own culture. His changes will be minimal: he'll alter the
results of a presidential election, but he won't change the country that
holds that election. At least not too much. So the timebelts remain centered
around the English-speaking nexus.
Those users who do go gallivanting off to Jesus-less universes will
find themselves in worlds where English never developed. If they elect to
stay, making it their new homeline, they can continue to spin off any number
of themselves. But when the last version dies, that's where the belt stops.
There's no one in that timeline who can read the directions.
A timebelt either stays close to home, or it stops being used. Should
anyone attempt to use the belt, they'll probably eliminate themselves. You
can't learn time-tracking by trial and error. It's crude, but effective.
It's an automatic way of eliminating extreme variations of the homeline.
Just what the homeline is, though, I'll never know.
I've come so far in the ten or more years I've been using the belt that
I'm not sure I even remember where I started.
I wish I could talk to Uncle Jim about it, but I can't. He's not in
this timeline.
Too late I went looking for him, but he wasn't there. I don't know what
it was, I've made so many changes, but something I did must have excised
him. I don't know what to undo to find him.
I've removed myself from my last real contact with with what? Reality?
I've never been so lonely in my life.
* * *
Maybe I'm lost in time.
It's a fact, I don't know where I am.
I went looking for Uncle Jim and couldn't find him. When I realized
that I must have accidentally excised him (probably by one of my "revisions"
in this world), I went looking for myself. If I caught myself on May 19,
1975, when I was given the timebelt, perhaps I could keep myself from
editing out my uncle.
But I wasn't there either.
I do not exist in this timeline.
There is no Daniel Eakins here, nor any evidence to indicate that he
ever existed.
In this world I have no more past than I did in the Jesus-less world. I
have no origins.
And no future either.
If I cannot find younger versions of myself, perhaps there are older
versions but if there are, where are they? I have met no one in this
timeline, at least no one whom I have not become within a few days.
Where is my future?
The house has never seemed so empty.
The poker game is deserted, the pool table is empty, the bedroom lies
unused. The stereo is silent, the swimming pool is still, and I feel like a
ghost walking through a dead city. The crowds of me have vanished. My past
has been excised, and I have no future. Am I soon to die in this timeline?
Or do I just desert it?
Is that why I'm no longer here?
(Am I hiding from myself why doesn't a Don come back to help me?)
If this timeline is a dead end, then where am I going?
I wish I had my Uncle Jim.
I wish I had my Don.
Or even my Dan. Sweet Dan . . .
I've never been so scared.
Don, if you read this, please help me.
* * *
I must be logical about this.
One of two things has happened is about to happen.
The me I am about to become has obviously found a new timeline. Either
he doesn't want to come back to this one, or he is unable to. Perhaps he has
made some change that he can't undo. Perhaps he doesn't even know what that
change is.
Is it a change in the world timeline? Has he created a universe where
Aristotle never existed? Or did he accidentally kill Pope Sextus the Fifth?
Maybe it was something subtle, like stepping on a spider ... or fathering a
child who shouldn't have been. Whatever it was, has the Daniel Eakins I am
about to be lost himself in some strange and alien timeline?
I keep remembering the timeline where Jesus never lived am I to be lost
in a world like that?
Or is the change something else? Is it in me instead?
Am I about to make some drastic alteration in my personality? Something
I can't excise? Something I won't want to excise?
Something I am unable to excise?
What if I turn myself into a paraplegic? Or a mongoloid idiot,
incapable of understanding? Or am I on the verge of killing myself? Or
worse?
For the first time since I was given the timebelt, I am unable to see
the future my own personal future and it scares me.
Now I know what those other people feel. The ones who aren't me.
* * *
Suppose just suppose that I wanted to meet another version of myself:
I travel through time and there I am, an earlier or later Dan. I can
stay as long as I want and without any obligation to relive the time from
the other side. After all, we're really two different people. Really.
The first time I used the timebelt I met Don. Then I had thought that
there was only one of me and that the seeming existence of two of us was
just an illusion. Now I know that was wrong.
There's an infinite number of me, and the existence of one is an
illusion.
An illusion? Yes, but the illusion is as real to me and my subjective
point of view as the illusion of travel through time. I still feel like me.
As far as I'm concerned, I'm real.
I think I exist, therefore I exist. I think.
And so do all others.
Now. How do I go about meeting one of them?
One of those other versions of myself, one of the separate versions?
Not one who is simply me at some other part of my subjective life as so
many of the Dons and Dans are but a Daniel Eakins who has gone off in some
entirely different direction. How would I meet him?
The problem is one of communication. How do I let him know that I want
to meet him? How do I get a message across the timelines?
Well, let's see . . .
I could put something in the timebelt itself, a date and location
perhaps, then substitute it into Uncle Jim's package . . .
No. That part of my past no longer exists in this world. I excised it
remember?
Well, then, how about if I left a message far in the past . . .
No, that wouldn't work. Look at the trouble the
Coke bottle almost got me into. Where would I leave it
where only I would discover it? How would I how
would he know where to look for it? How could I even
be sure of its enduring for the several thousand years it
might have to? (Besides, I'm not sure it would exist in
any of the timelines that branched off before I got myself
into this dead end. Changes in the timestream are supposed to be
cumulative, not retroactive.)
I guess the answer to my question about getting a message across the
timelines is obvious: I don't. There simply isn't any working method of
trans-temporal communication. At least none that I can think of that's
foolproof.
But that doesn't mean I still can't meet another version of myself.
I meet different versions of myself all the time. The mild variants.
The only reason I haven't run into a distant variant is that we haven't been
tramping a common ground.
If I want to find such a variant, I have to go somewhere he's likely to
be.
Suppose that somewhere there's another me a distant me who's thinking
along the same lines: he wants to meet a Daniel Eakins who is widely variant
from himself.
What memories do we have in common?
Hmm, only those that existed before we were given the timebelt . . .
That's it, of course!
Our birthday.
* * *
I was born at 2:17 in the morning, January 24, 1956, at the Sherman
Oaks Medical Center, Sherman Oaks, California.
Of course, in this timeline, I hadn't been born wouldn't be born.
Something I had done had excised my birth; but I knew the date I would have
been born and so did every other Dan.
It was the logical place to look.
In 1977 the Sherman Oaks Medical Center was a
row of seven three- and four-story buildings lining Van
Nuys Boulevard just north of the Ventura Freeway.
In 1956 it comprised only two buildings, one of which was strictly
doctors' offices.
I twinged a little bit as I drove down Van Nuys Boulevard of the
mid-fifties. I'd been spending most of my time in the seventies. I hadn't
realized . . .
The two movie theaters were still the Van Nuys and the Rivoli. Neither
had been remodeled yet into the Fox or the Capri and the Capri was soon to
be torn down. Most of the tall office buildings were missing, and there were
too many tacky little stores lining the street.
And the cars my god, did people actually drive those things? They were
boxy, high, and bulky. Their styling was atrocious Fords and Chevys with the
beginnings of tail fins and double headlights; Chryslers and Cadillacs with
too much chrome. And Studebakers and DeSotos and Packards!
There was a big vacant field where I remembered a blue glass,
slab-sided building that stretched for more than a block. But the teenage
hangout across the street from it was still alive, still a hangout.
I twinged, because in 1977 I had left a city. This was only a small
town, busy in its own peaceful way, but still a small town. Why had I
remembered it as being exciting?
As I approached the Medical Center itself, I real-
ized with a start that something was missing. Then it hit
me in 1956 the Ventura Freeway hadn't been built yet,
didn't extend to Van Nuys Boulevard. (I wondered if the
big red Pacific Electric Railroad cars were still running. I
didn't know when they had finally stopped, but the
tracks had remained for years.)
I'd seen Los Angeles in its earlier incarnations, but the Los Angeles
of 1930 had always seemed like another city, like a giant Disneyland put up
for Danny the perpetual tourist. It wasn't real. But this this I recognized.
I could see the glimmerings of my own world here, its embryonic beginnings,
the bones around which the flesh of the future would grow.
I parked my '76 'Vette at the corner of Riverside Drive and Van Nuys,
ignoring the stares of the curious. I'd forgotten what I was doing and
brought it back with me. So what? Let them think it was some kind of racer.
I couldn't care less. I was lost in thought.
I'd been living my whole life around the same three years. Sure, I'd
gone traveling off to other eras, but those had been just trips. I'd always
returned to 1977 because I'd always thought of it as home.
I'd folded and compressed my whole life into a span of just a few
months.
Consequently, I lived in a world where the landscape never changed.
Never.
They'd been building the new dorm for the college for as long as I
could remember. They'd been grading for the new freeway forever. (Oh, I knew
what the finished structures would look like. I'd even driven the new
freeway; but the time that I knew as home was frozen. Static. Unchanging.)
I'd lived in the same year for over ten subjective years. I'd grown too
used to the idea that home would endure forever. For me, the San Fernando
Valley was a stable entity. I'd forgotten what a dynamically alive city it
was because I'd lost the ability to see its growth
because I no longer traveled linearly through time.
Other people travel through time in a straight line. For them, growth
is a constant process, perceived only when the changes are major ones, or
when there is something to compare them against.
To me, growth is
it doesn't exist. Every time I jump, I expect the world to change. I
never equate any era with any other. Until now, that is.
I knew this city; I'd grown up here but I'd forgot-
ten that it existed. I'd forgotten what it was like to be a
part of the moving timestream, to grow up with a city, to
see it change as you change. . . .
I'd forgotten so much.
So much.
* * *
There was no one at the hospital, of course.
That is, I wasn't there there were no other versions of Daniel Jamieson
Eakins waiting to meet me.
I should have known it, of course. My birthday fell within the range of
changes I'd been making. I was the only me in this timeline. If I wanted to
find another me, I'd have to go outside the scope of my temporal activity.
I'd have to go into the past. Deep into the past.
The only way to escape the effects of any change is to jump back to a
point before it happened.
I'd been making changes for the past two hundred years. If I was to
meet a variant Dan, we'd both have to go back beyond that span.
But how far back?
I stood by the car, jingling my keys indecisively. The one location I
was sure of was this hospital; the one date, my birthday.
Okay
This spot. The middle of the San Fernando Valley.
The date: January 24. My birthday.
one thousand years ago. Exactly.
I got in the car, set the timebelt to include it, and tapped twice
* * *
POP!
I'd been expecting it, but the jump-shock was still severe. The pain of
it is directly proportional to the amount of mass making the jump.
Rubbing myself ruefully, I opened the door and got out.
My Corvette and I were in the middle of a flat brown plain. Scraggly
plants and bushes all around. I recognized the Hollywood Hills to the
southeast. Crisp blue sky. Unreal; no smog. And dry, almost desertlike
ground stretching emptily to the purple-brown mountains that surrounded the
valley. The San Bernardino range had never looked so forbidding; those black
walls at the far northeast end were undimmed by human haze, undwarfed by
human buildings, unscarred by human roads. I gazed in awe; I'd never really
noticed them before.
"Well?" said a female voice behind me. "Are you going to stand there
and admire the view all day?" I whirled
she was beautiful.
Almost my height. Hair the same color brown as mine. Eyes the same
color green, soft and downturned. The same cast of features, only slightly
more delicate. She could have been my sister.
She indicated the car with a nod and a giggle. "Are you planning to
drive somewhere?"
"I uh, no that is I didn't know what I was planning. I Hey, who are
you?"
"Diane."
"Diane? Is that all?"
She twinkled. "Diana Jane Eakins. Hey, what's the matter? Did I say
something wrong?"
"I'm Dan!" I blurted. "Daniel Eakins. Daniel Jamieson Eakins "
"Oh " she said. And then it sunk in. "Oh!"
* * *
The silence was embarrassing.
"Uh . . ."I said. "I have this timebelt."
"So do I. My Aunt Jane gave it to me."
"I got mine from my Uncle Jim."
She pointed to a gazebo-like affair about a hundred yards off. "Would
you like to sit down?"
"Did you bring that with you?"
"Uh-huh. Do you like it?"
I followed her through the weeds. "Well, it's different." Judging from
its distance and the angle from the car, she had put it up in the hospital
parking lot. "It's more comfortable than a sports car," she said.
I shrugged. "I won't deny it." I recognized the gazebo as a variation
of the Komfy-Kamper (1998): "All the comforts of home in a single unit." I
wondered if I should reach out for her hand. She was looking strangely at me
too. I reached out . . .
We walked side by side the short remaining distance.
"Why did you come back here?" I asked.
"To see if anyone else would," she said. "I was lonely."
"Me too," I admitted. "I suddenly discovered I couldn't find myself.
I'd excised my past and there didn't seem to be any me in the future "
"You too? That's what happened to me. I couldn't
even find my Aunt Jane."
" so I thought I'd come looking for a variant Dan
and find out what happened."
I stopped abruptly. I certainly had found a variant Dan. About as
variant as I could get ... I wondered what I was shaped like under those
clothes.
She let go of my hand and took a step back; she cocked her head
curiously. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"You're very pretty."
She flushed, then she recovered. "You're kind of
cute too." She peered closely at me. "I've always wondered what I would
look like as a boy. Now I know; I'd be very handsome." Impulsively she put
her hands on my chest. "And very nicely built too not too much muscle, not
so many as to look brutish; just enough to look manly."
Now it was my turn to be embarrassed. I dropped my gaze to her breasts.
"You can touch me if you want."
I wanted to. I did.
Her breasts were nice.
"I don't wear a bra," she said.
"I noticed."
"Do I pass inspection?" she whispered.
"Oh, yes," I said. "Very much so."
She pressed close to me, she moved her face up to mine. . . .
The kiss lasted for a very long, long time.
* * *
The sun was lowering behind the western hills. The sky was all shades
of purple and orange. Twilight was a gray-blue haze.
We'd been talking for hours. We'd stopped to eat and then we'd talked
some more.
We had pulled the shades on three sides of the gazebo and turned the
heat up. We sat naked in the glow of the electric fire and watched the
sunset.
"The more I look at you, the prettier you get," she murmured.
"You too." I stretched across the heater and kissed her.
"Careful," she said after a moment. "Don't burn anything off. We may
want to use it again."
"I hope so." I kissed her again, while she cupped me protectively. I
moved closer.
We lay there side by side for a while. "I can't get over how good you
feel." Her hands stroked up and down my back, my sides, my legs; my hands
held her shoulders, her breasts. I kissed them gently, I kissed her eyelids
too.
She looked up at me. "I liked having you inside me. It was very good."
"I liked being inside you."
She hugged me tight. "I could stay like this forever."
"Me too."
There was silence. The night gathered softly. Our words hung in the
air.
Finally I said, "You know, we could. We could stay here forever."
"Do you want to ... ?"
"Yes," I whispered. I began to move again. "Oh,
yes."
"Oh, Dan," she gasped. "Oh, my darling, my sweet, sweet Dan "
"Oh, baby, yes " I rearranged my position on top
of her and again the silvery warmth tingled
Exploded.
Delighted.
* * *
slid into me.
He was around me and inside me, his arms and legs and penis; we rocked
and moved together, we fitted like one person. He filled me till I
overflowed, kindled and inflamed
We gasped and giggled and sighed and soared and sang and laughed and
cried and leaped and flew and
dazzled and burst, exploding fireworks, surging fire
We rustled and sighed. And died. And hugged and held on.
He was still within me. Sweet squeeze, warmth. I
held him tight. I loved the feel of him, the taste of him. I
loved the smell of him the sweaty sense of masculine
man. Musky. I melted, under him, around him.
Loved him.
* * *
January night. Cold wind. We pulled the last shade.
There was just one more thing. I had to make it complete.
"Dan," I whispered. "I have to tell you something."
"What?" In the pink light, his face was glowing.
I took a breath. "I I'm not exactly a virgin."
"Of course not," he grinned. "We just took care of that."
"No, that's not what I meant. I wasn't a virgin
before."
"Oh?"
"I mean " I forced myself to go on. I had to tell
him everything or it wouldn't be any good. "I was only a
'technical virgin.' I'd never done it with a boy before.
You were the first."
"Yes, of course," he said quietly. "I should have realized. You only
did it with ..."
"Only Donna and Diana. I mean, I only did it
with myself. When I was Donna, I "
He cut me off gently, "I know."
"Is it all right?" I had to know. "You're not disappointed in me?"
"Of course not. I understand."
"I only did it because I was lonely."
"No," he said slowly, shaking his head. "You wanted
to do it and you enjoyed it. You did it because you're the
only person you can trust, the only person you feel completely at ease
with, and you wanted to express your feelings and your affection. You did it
because you loved yourself"
"I yes, you're right." I couldn't deny it.
"Diana," he whispered. "Think a minute. About
me. I'm both Don and Dan. I'm the male reflection of
you."
His eyes were bright.
"Did you ?" I couldn't finish the question.
But he knew what I meant. He nodded. "We did I did."
I thought about that. Dan. Diane.
Dan. Diane.
Boy, Girl.
Same. Person.
And suddenly I was crying. Crying, sobbing into his arms. "Oh, Dan, I'm
so sorry "
He stroked my hair. "It's all right, sweetheart.
There's nothing to be sorry about, nothing at all."
"I'm so stupid "
"No, you're not. You were smart enough to come
looking for me, weren't you?"
"Oh, no I didn't know what I was looking for. I just didn't want to be
alone anymore."
"Neither did I. I didn't know what I wanted either,
but you're just perfect "
"So are you " I wiped at the tears on his chest. I
didn't know what I was feeling anymore. I felt ripped up
and ripped open. I felt so vulnerable. And at the same
time, I felt everything was all right too. He wasn't me.
But he was. And I couldn't get enough of him. He tasted good. Was I in
love or just infatuated? Or was I trying to prove something to myself? I
don't know. But he was the first man I ever felt I could trust. I started
crying again, I don't know why. "Hold me, Dan, hold me tight. Don't let go.
I want you inside me again."
"Oh, yes, baby. Yes, yes. Yes Oh, Danny, I love you."
"Diane, I love you too!"
* * *
The sensuousness of sex. The maleness of me. The femaleness of her. The
physical sensations of strength and warmth. Flesh against smooth flesh. Firm
resistance, supple yielding.
Sex with Diane is different from any kind of sex I have ever had
before. There is something boyish about her that I find strangely
attractive, yet deliciously feminine. I put my arms around her and she is
neither male nor female, but a little of each. And there is something
feminine in me that she responds to. (Perhaps it is a quality that is common
to both of us and independent of physical gender. An androgynous quality. My
body may be male or it may be female, but I am neither I am me.)
I keep thinking of Danny, and it is hard not to make comparisons
between the two of them, even though I know it is unfair to both. But Danny
and I (Don and I) have been through so much together, have meant so much to
each other.
Diane lacks Danny's intensity (yes), but Danny
could never match her sensuality. The sheer physical delight of her
body, the perfect matching of male to female, the tenderness of her response
to mine; all of these combine to make sex with her an experience that is new
to me. I delight in being with her, in being inside of her, just as she
delights in opening to me. I admit it, I am fascinated by her body, by the
femaleness of her, the geography, the open depths that I plunge into, again
and again. ... I lose all consciousness. All that exists is the feeling, the
incredible wallow of emotion and silly talk and discovery after discovery. I
know what is happening to me and I don't care. I admit it happily. I have
become a horny little schoolboy, not just discovering sex but inventing it
fresh and new, as if it had never existed before.
Well, it hasn't. Not for us.
I see her as something special. Not a new person, no, but another
reflection of myself. Another Danny perhaps and in the most different guise
of all. Yes. Danny with a vagina.
Think of her as he. It is the quality of Danny-ness I see in him that
is so intriguing, so independent of sexuality. There is a Danny trapped
inside that female body screaming to let me in. Just as there is a Diane
inside me.
I cannot help but like it.
We enjoy our physical roles as we have never en-
joyed them before; at least I know I do; but deep inside is
a sense of loss. I think I loved my Danny more. And I
think I know why.
With Danny, the physical forms were identical; the mental roles could
be arbitrary. It was just me and him. We could choose our roles, we could
take turns, we could be pansexual. I didn't have to be male, I didn't have
to be dominant. With Don I could be weak, with Don I could cry.
With Diane, it is different.
I feel limited.
And in a sense, I am. I am limited to the role given me by fate, by
gender. My sex is the one thing about myself I cannot alter. Our bodies
determine and define our roles at least to the extent that I must be a man
to her woman. Despite all the different roles either of us are capable of
playing for each other, ultimately we can only return to the ones already
assigned us. (If this is Danny, then Danny is the only woman here. There are
no tradeoffs anymore. Danny has limited our roles.) There is no other
relationship for either of us. At least, that's how I perceive it.
The relationship is not unenjoyable. Indeed, it is the most joyous of
all. But still, there is that sense of loss . . .
* * *
We have been together how long?
Months, it must be.
We have a home on the edge of prehistory, a villa on the shores of what
someday will be called Mission Bay. It's a sprawling mansion on a deserted
coast, a self-contained unit; it has to be, because we brought it back to
the year 100,000 B.C. A honeymoon cottage for the outcasts of time.
The sea washes blue across yellow sands. Seagulls wheel and dive,
cawing raucously. The sun blazes bright in an azure sky. And the only
footprints are ours. We live a strange kind of life in our timeless world.
Loneliness is unknown to us; yet neither of us ever lacks for privacy.
We see each other only when both of us want it. Never can either force
himself on the other. That's part of being a time traveler.
I cannot journey to her future, nor can she to mine. When we bounce
forward, I am in Danny's world, she is in Diane's. The only place we can
meet is in the past, because only the past is unaffected by both of us.
Should either of us need to be alone, we simply
bounce to a different point in time. (I have seen the ruins
of this mansion standing forlorn and alone, swept by the
sands and washed by the sea, while the sun lies orange in
the west. These walls will be dust by the time of Christ.)
Returning, I am in her arms again. I am there because I want to be
there.
She vanishes too, but only momentarily; she returns in a different
dress and hair style. I know she has been gone longer than I have seen, but
I know she comes back to me with her desire at its fullest. I open my arms.
We have never had an argument. It is impossible when either of you can
disappear at the instant of displeasure. All of our moments are happy ones.
Life with Diane is almost idyllic.
Almost.
Today she told me she was pregnant.
And I'm not sure how I feel about that. There is a sense of joy and
wonder in me but I am also disturbed. Jealous that something else, someone
else, can make her glow with such happiness. The look on her face as she
told me I have seen that intensity only in her climax.
I know I shouldn't be, but I am bothered that I cannot give her such
prolonged intensity of joy. And I am bothered that someone else is inside of
her, someone other than me.
And yet, I'm happy. Happy for her, happy for me. I don't know why, but
I know that this baby must be something special.
It must be.
* * *
The baby proves something that I have suspected
for a long time. My life is out of control. I am no longer
the master of my own destiny.
There is little that I can do with this situation. Except run from it.
Or can I . . . ?
* * *
Being pregnant is a special kind of time.
Within me there is life, helpless and small; I can feel
it move. I can feel it grow. I wait eagerly for the day of its
entrance into the world so I can hold it and touch it, love
it and feed it, hold it to my breasts.
This is a special baby. It will be. I know it will be. I am filled with
wonder. I see my body in the mirror, swollen and beautiful. I run my hands
across my bulging stomach in awed delight. This is something Donna could
never have given me. (I miss her though; I wish she were here to share this
moment. She is, of course. She will be here when I need her.)
Oh, there is discomfort too, more than I had expected the difficulties
in bending over and walking, the back pains and the troubles in the
bathroom, the loginess and the nausea but it's worth it. When I think of the
small beautiful wonder which will soon burst into my life, the whole world
turns pink and giggly. I feel that I'm on the threshold of something big.
* * *
The baby was born this morning.
It is a boy. A beautiful, handsome, healthy boy.
I am delighted. And disappointed. I had wanted a girl.
A girl ...
* * *
In 2013 the first genetic-control drug was put on the market. It
allowed a man and woman to choose the sex of their unborn child.
In 2035 in-utero genetic tailoring became practical.
The technique allowed a woman to determine which of several available
chromosomes in the egg and sperm cells would function as dominants. The only
condition was that the tailoring must be done within the first month of
pregnancy.
In 2110 extra-utero genetic tailoring was widespread. The process
allowed the parent to program the shape of his offspring. A computer-coded
germ plasma could be built, link by amino-acid link, implanted into a
genetically neutral egg, then carefully cultured and developed, eventually
to be implanted inside a womb, either real or artificial.
I do not want to design a whole child. I just want a baby girl. I want
her identical to me. I will have to go back and see Diane before she gets
pregnant, but that should be the easy part.
I will not tell Dan this. I think this is a decision that I have to
make myself. The baby is mine and so is the decision. My son will be a girl.
* * *
The baby was born this morning.
It is a girl. A beautiful, pink little girl.
I am delighted. And disappointed. I had wanted a boy.
A boy . . .
* * *
I will not tell Diane this. I think this is a decision that I have to
make myself (And there are ways that it can be done so that she will never
know. I know when the child was conceived and I know which drugs to take
beforehand. I will have to either replace Danny, or make him take the
injection, but she will never suspect.) My daughter will be a son.
* * *
Why do I keep coming back?
I get on her nerves, she gets on mine. We argue
about the little things; we make a point of fighting with
each other. Why?
Last night we were lying in bed, side by side, just lying there, not
doing anything, just listening to each other breathe and staring at the
ceiling. She said, "Danny?"
I said, "Yes?"
She said, "It's over, isn't it?"
I nodded. "Yes."
She turned to me then and slid her arms around me. Her cheeks were wet
too.
I held her tight. "I'm sorry," I said. "I wanted it to work so much."
She sniffed. "Me too."
We held on to each other for a long time. After a while I shifted my
position, then she shifted hers. She rolled over on her back and I slid on
top of her. She was so slender, so intense. We moved together in silence,
hearing only the sound of our breathing. We remembered and pretended, each
of us lost in our own thoughts, and wishing that it hadn't come to this.
The sheets were cool in the night and she was warm
and silky. If only it could be like this all the time. . . .
was still conscious of what was happening to himself."
"If he ever does get his hands on another timebelt," Danny asked, "he
could come back and rescue himself, couldn't he?"
I nodded. "That's partly why it was so hard to trap him. We had to get
him into a timeline where he had no foreknowledge of where he was going,
otherwise he would have jumped ahead to help himself against us. We wouldn't
even have known about him if he hadn't kept coming farther and farther back
into the past; one of us must have eventually recognized what was happening
and gone for treatment, then come after this one who was still rampaging
around. That's when I was called in to help. We had to deny him any chance
to look into his own future until we could get the belt off him. The fact
that he hasn't been rescued yet is a pretty good sign that this is the end
of the line for this variant."
Danny grinned. "Well, just the fact that we're standing here talking
about it proves that."
"Uh-huh," I said. I put my hand on his shoulder.
"I'm from a line where they caught it in me before it got
this far. I never went through that." I pointed at the
glass. "You, you're a variant too. You're from even earlier.
Neither of us is in there. He could be incurable and if that's the
case, then he has to stay in there. Forever. He and I mean all of us has to
be either completely safe, or the timebelt must be held beyond his reach.
The consequences " I didn't have to finish the sentence.
Danny bit his lip. "You're right, of course. It's just that I don't
like seeing him there."
"It's for his own good," I said. "More important, it's
for our good. If time travel is the ultimate personal freedom, then
it's also the ultimate personal responsibility." "I guess so," he said and
turned away from the glass.
I didn't add anything to that and we left the hospital for the last
time.
* * *
Today President Robert F. Kennedy announced that
"in response to recent discoveries, the United States is
initiating a high-priority research program to investigate
the possibilities of travel through time."
So in order to protect myself (and my one-man monopoly), I had to go
back and unkill Sirhan Sirhan. Dammit.
The "recent discoveries" he was referring to were some unfortunate
anachronisms which I seem to have left in the past.
I thought I had been more careful, but apparently I haven't. One of the
Pompeiian artifacts in the British Museum has definitely been identified as
a fossilized Coca-Cola bottle from the Atlanta, Georgia, bottling plant.
Well, I never said I was neat. . . .
I don't remember dropping the Coke bottle, but if it's there, I must
have. Unless some other version of me left it there
That is possible. The more I bounce around time,
the more versions of me there are; many of us seem to be
overlapping, but I have observed Dans and Dons doing
things that I never have or never will at least I don't
intend to so if they exist in this timeline, they must be
other versions, just "passing through."
Either they're around to react to me, or I'm supposed to react to them.
Or both. Certain fluxes must keep occurring, I guess I assume there are
mathematical formulae for expressing them, but I'm no mathematician which
necessitate two or more versions of myself coming into contact: such as the
Don who came back through time to warn me against winning three million
dollars at the race track on May 20.
That one was a situation where three versions of me had to exist
simultaneously in one world: Dan, Don, and ultra-Don (who was excising
himself). Other situations have been more complex; the more complex I
become, the more me's there are in this world.
The whole process is evolutionary. Every time Daniel Eakins eliminates
a timeline, he's removing a nonviable one and replacing it with one that
suits him better. The world changes and develops, always working itself
toward some unknown utopia of his own personal design.
My needs and desires keep changing, so does the world. (I must be about
thirty now. I have no way of keeping track, but I look about that age.) I
have lived in worlds dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure sexual fantasies
come true. I had lived in other worlds too, harsher ones, for the sense of
adventure. World War II was my private party.
But always, whenever I create a specialized world, I make a point of
doing it very, very carefully with one or two easily reversed changes.
I do not want to get too far from home meaning
my own timeline. I do not want to get lost among alternate worlds with
no way to get back and no way to find out what changes I made to create that
alternate world.
So I make my changes one at a time and double-
check each one before introducing another. If I decide I
do not like a world, I will know exactly how to excise it. (I thought I
had done right when I kidnapped the baby
Hitler and left him twenty years away from his point of origin, but
that had serious repercussions on the world of 1975, so I had to put the
baby back. Instead I let Hitler be assassinated by his own generals in 1939.
Much neater all around.)
For a while I was on an anti-assassination kick. I have had the unique
pleasure of tapping Lee Harvey Oswald on the shoulder (Yes, I know there
were people who had doubts about who did it but I was there; I know it was
Oswald) just before he would have pulled the trigger. Then I blew his head
off. (John Wilkes Booth, James Earl Ray, and Sirhan Sirhan were similarly
startled. In two cases, though, I had to go back and excise my removal of
the assassins. I didn't like the resultant worlds. Some of our heroes serve
us better dead than alive.)
Once I created a world where Jesus Christ never existed. He went out
into the desert to fast and he never came back.
The twentieth century I returned to was different.
Alien.
The languages were different, the clothing styles, the maps,
everything. The cities were smaller; the buildings were shorter and the
streets were narrower. There were fewer cars and they seemed ugly and
inefficient. There were slave traders in the city that would have been New
York. There were temples to Gods I didn't recognize. Everything was wrong.
I could have been on another planet. The culture was incomprehensible.
I went back and talked myself out of eliminating Jesus Christ.
Look. I confess to no great love for organized religion. The idea of
Christianity (with a capital C) leaves me cold. Jesus was only an ordinary
human being, I know that for a fact, and everything that's been done in his
name has been a sham. It's been other people using his name for their own
purposes.
But I don't dare excise that part of my world.
I might be able to make a good case for Christianity
if I wanted. After all, the birth of the Christian idea and
its resultant spread throughout the Western Hemisphere
was a significant step upward in human consciousness
the placing of a cause, a higher goal, above the goal of
oneself, to create the kingdom of heaven to be created on
Earth. And so on.
But I also know that Christianity has held back any further advances in
human consciousness for the past thousand years. And for the past century
itТs been in direct conflict with its illegitimate offspring, Communism
(again with a capital C). Both ask the individual to sacrifice his
self-interest to the higher goals of the organization. (Which is okay by me
as long as it's voluntary; but as soon as either becomes too big and takes
on that damned capital C- they stop asking for cooperation and start
demanding it.)
Any higher states of human enlightenment have been sacrificed between
these two monoliths. So why am I so determined to preserve the Church?
Because, more than any other force in history, it has created the
culture of which I am a product. If I eliminate the Church, then I eliminate
the only culture in which I am a native. I become, literally, a man without
a world.
Presumably there are worlds that are better than
this one, but if I create them, it must be carefully, because I have to
live in them too. I will be a part of whatever world I create, so I cannot
be haphazard with them.
Just as a time-traveling Daniel Eakins keeps evolving toward a more and
more inevitable version of himself, then so does the world he creates. It's
a pretty stable world, especially in the years between 1950 and 2020. Every
so often it needs a "dusting and cleaning" to keep it that way, but it's a
pretty good world.
Just as I keep excising those of me which tend to extremes, so am I
excising those worlds which do not suit me. I experiment, but I always come
back.
I guess I'm basically a very conservative person.
* * *
Once in a while I wonder about the origins of the
timebelt. Where did it come from?
Who built it and why?
I have a theory about it, but there's no way to check
for sure. Just as I am unable to return to the timeline of
my origin, so is the timebelt unable to return to its. All I
can do is hypothesize . . .
But figure it this way: At some point in some timeline, somebody
invents a time machine. Somebody. Anybody. Makes no difference, just as long
as it gets invented.
Well, that's a pretty powerful weapon. The ultimate weapon. Sooner or
later some power-hungry individual is going to realize that. Possession and
use of the timebelt is a way for a man to realize his every dream. He can be
king of the world. He can be king of any world every world!
Naturally, as soon as he can, he's going to try to implement his ideas.
The first thing he'll do is excise the world in which the timebelt was
invented, so no one else will have a belt and be able to come after him.
Then he'll start playing around in time. He'll start rewriting his own life.
He'll start creating new versions of himself; he'll start evolving himself
across a variety of timelines.
Am I the trans-lineal beneficiary of that person?
Or maybe the timebelt began another way
It looks like a manufactured product, but very rugged. Could it have
been built for military uses? Could some no longer existent nation have
planned to rule throughout history by some vast timebelt-supported
dictatorship? Am I the descendant of a fugitive who found a way to excise
that tyranny?
Or and this is the most insane of all is it that somewhere there's a
company that's manufacturing and selling timebelts like transistor radios?
And anyone who wants one just goes to his nearby department store, plunks
$23.95 down on the counter, and gets all his dreams fulfilled?
Crazy, isn't it?
But possible.
As far as the home timeline is concerned, all those people using
timebelts have simply disappeared. As far as each subjective traveler knows,
he's rewriting all of time. It makes no difference either way; the number of
alternate universes is infinite.
The more I think about it, the more likely that latter possibility
seems.
Consider it's the far future. You've almost got utopia the only thing
that keeps every man from realizing all of his dreams is the overpopulation
of the planet Earth. So you start selling timebelts you give them away
pretty soon every man is a king and the home world is depopulated to a
comfortable level. The only responsibility you need to worry about is
policing yourself, not letting schizoid versions of yourself run around your
timeline. (Oh, you could, I suppose, but could you sleep nights knowing
there was a madman running loose who wanted to kill you?) The reason is
obvious you want to keep your own timelines stable, don't you? Is that where
it started?
Is that where Uncle Jim came from? Did he buy himself a timebelt and
excise the world that created it? I don't know.
I suspect, though, that a timebelt never gets too far from the base
timeline, and that the user-generated differences in the timelines are
generally within predictable limits.
Because the instructions are in English.
Wherever it was manufactured, it was an English-
speaking world. With all that implies. History. Morals.
Culture. Religion. (Perhaps it was my home timeline where the belt
began, perhaps just a few years in my future.)
Obviously the belt was intended for people who could read and
understand its instructions. Otherwise, you could kill yourself. Or worse.
You could send yourself on a one-way trip to eternity. (Read the special
cautions.)
If the average user is like me, he's too lazy to learn a new language
(especially one that might disappear forever with his very next jump), so
anyone with a timebelt is likely to keep himself generally within the
confines of his own culture. His changes will be minimal: he'll alter the
results of a presidential election, but he won't change the country that
holds that election. At least not too much. So the timebelts remain centered
around the English-speaking nexus.
Those users who do go gallivanting off to Jesus-less universes will
find themselves in worlds where English never developed. If they elect to
stay, making it their new homeline, they can continue to spin off any number
of themselves. But when the last version dies, that's where the belt stops.
There's no one in that timeline who can read the directions.
A timebelt either stays close to home, or it stops being used. Should
anyone attempt to use the belt, they'll probably eliminate themselves. You
can't learn time-tracking by trial and error. It's crude, but effective.
It's an automatic way of eliminating extreme variations of the homeline.
Just what the homeline is, though, I'll never know.
I've come so far in the ten or more years I've been using the belt that
I'm not sure I even remember where I started.
I wish I could talk to Uncle Jim about it, but I can't. He's not in
this timeline.
Too late I went looking for him, but he wasn't there. I don't know what
it was, I've made so many changes, but something I did must have excised
him. I don't know what to undo to find him.
I've removed myself from my last real contact with with what? Reality?
I've never been so lonely in my life.
* * *
Maybe I'm lost in time.
It's a fact, I don't know where I am.
I went looking for Uncle Jim and couldn't find him. When I realized
that I must have accidentally excised him (probably by one of my "revisions"
in this world), I went looking for myself. If I caught myself on May 19,
1975, when I was given the timebelt, perhaps I could keep myself from
editing out my uncle.
But I wasn't there either.
I do not exist in this timeline.
There is no Daniel Eakins here, nor any evidence to indicate that he
ever existed.
In this world I have no more past than I did in the Jesus-less world. I
have no origins.
And no future either.
If I cannot find younger versions of myself, perhaps there are older
versions but if there are, where are they? I have met no one in this
timeline, at least no one whom I have not become within a few days.
Where is my future?
The house has never seemed so empty.
The poker game is deserted, the pool table is empty, the bedroom lies
unused. The stereo is silent, the swimming pool is still, and I feel like a
ghost walking through a dead city. The crowds of me have vanished. My past
has been excised, and I have no future. Am I soon to die in this timeline?
Or do I just desert it?
Is that why I'm no longer here?
(Am I hiding from myself why doesn't a Don come back to help me?)
If this timeline is a dead end, then where am I going?
I wish I had my Uncle Jim.
I wish I had my Don.
Or even my Dan. Sweet Dan . . .
I've never been so scared.
Don, if you read this, please help me.
* * *
I must be logical about this.
One of two things has happened is about to happen.
The me I am about to become has obviously found a new timeline. Either
he doesn't want to come back to this one, or he is unable to. Perhaps he has
made some change that he can't undo. Perhaps he doesn't even know what that
change is.
Is it a change in the world timeline? Has he created a universe where
Aristotle never existed? Or did he accidentally kill Pope Sextus the Fifth?
Maybe it was something subtle, like stepping on a spider ... or fathering a
child who shouldn't have been. Whatever it was, has the Daniel Eakins I am
about to be lost himself in some strange and alien timeline?
I keep remembering the timeline where Jesus never lived am I to be lost
in a world like that?
Or is the change something else? Is it in me instead?
Am I about to make some drastic alteration in my personality? Something
I can't excise? Something I won't want to excise?
Something I am unable to excise?
What if I turn myself into a paraplegic? Or a mongoloid idiot,
incapable of understanding? Or am I on the verge of killing myself? Or
worse?
For the first time since I was given the timebelt, I am unable to see
the future my own personal future and it scares me.
Now I know what those other people feel. The ones who aren't me.
* * *
Suppose just suppose that I wanted to meet another version of myself:
I travel through time and there I am, an earlier or later Dan. I can
stay as long as I want and without any obligation to relive the time from
the other side. After all, we're really two different people. Really.
The first time I used the timebelt I met Don. Then I had thought that
there was only one of me and that the seeming existence of two of us was
just an illusion. Now I know that was wrong.
There's an infinite number of me, and the existence of one is an
illusion.
An illusion? Yes, but the illusion is as real to me and my subjective
point of view as the illusion of travel through time. I still feel like me.
As far as I'm concerned, I'm real.
I think I exist, therefore I exist. I think.
And so do all others.
Now. How do I go about meeting one of them?
One of those other versions of myself, one of the separate versions?
Not one who is simply me at some other part of my subjective life as so
many of the Dons and Dans are but a Daniel Eakins who has gone off in some
entirely different direction. How would I meet him?
The problem is one of communication. How do I let him know that I want
to meet him? How do I get a message across the timelines?
Well, let's see . . .
I could put something in the timebelt itself, a date and location
perhaps, then substitute it into Uncle Jim's package . . .
No. That part of my past no longer exists in this world. I excised it
remember?
Well, then, how about if I left a message far in the past . . .
No, that wouldn't work. Look at the trouble the
Coke bottle almost got me into. Where would I leave it
where only I would discover it? How would I how
would he know where to look for it? How could I even
be sure of its enduring for the several thousand years it
might have to? (Besides, I'm not sure it would exist in
any of the timelines that branched off before I got myself
into this dead end. Changes in the timestream are supposed to be
cumulative, not retroactive.)
I guess the answer to my question about getting a message across the
timelines is obvious: I don't. There simply isn't any working method of
trans-temporal communication. At least none that I can think of that's
foolproof.
But that doesn't mean I still can't meet another version of myself.
I meet different versions of myself all the time. The mild variants.
The only reason I haven't run into a distant variant is that we haven't been
tramping a common ground.
If I want to find such a variant, I have to go somewhere he's likely to
be.
Suppose that somewhere there's another me a distant me who's thinking
along the same lines: he wants to meet a Daniel Eakins who is widely variant
from himself.
What memories do we have in common?
Hmm, only those that existed before we were given the timebelt . . .
That's it, of course!
Our birthday.
* * *
I was born at 2:17 in the morning, January 24, 1956, at the Sherman
Oaks Medical Center, Sherman Oaks, California.
Of course, in this timeline, I hadn't been born wouldn't be born.
Something I had done had excised my birth; but I knew the date I would have
been born and so did every other Dan.
It was the logical place to look.
In 1977 the Sherman Oaks Medical Center was a
row of seven three- and four-story buildings lining Van
Nuys Boulevard just north of the Ventura Freeway.
In 1956 it comprised only two buildings, one of which was strictly
doctors' offices.
I twinged a little bit as I drove down Van Nuys Boulevard of the
mid-fifties. I'd been spending most of my time in the seventies. I hadn't
realized . . .
The two movie theaters were still the Van Nuys and the Rivoli. Neither
had been remodeled yet into the Fox or the Capri and the Capri was soon to
be torn down. Most of the tall office buildings were missing, and there were
too many tacky little stores lining the street.
And the cars my god, did people actually drive those things? They were
boxy, high, and bulky. Their styling was atrocious Fords and Chevys with the
beginnings of tail fins and double headlights; Chryslers and Cadillacs with
too much chrome. And Studebakers and DeSotos and Packards!
There was a big vacant field where I remembered a blue glass,
slab-sided building that stretched for more than a block. But the teenage
hangout across the street from it was still alive, still a hangout.
I twinged, because in 1977 I had left a city. This was only a small
town, busy in its own peaceful way, but still a small town. Why had I
remembered it as being exciting?
As I approached the Medical Center itself, I real-
ized with a start that something was missing. Then it hit
me in 1956 the Ventura Freeway hadn't been built yet,
didn't extend to Van Nuys Boulevard. (I wondered if the
big red Pacific Electric Railroad cars were still running. I
didn't know when they had finally stopped, but the
tracks had remained for years.)
I'd seen Los Angeles in its earlier incarnations, but the Los Angeles
of 1930 had always seemed like another city, like a giant Disneyland put up
for Danny the perpetual tourist. It wasn't real. But this this I recognized.
I could see the glimmerings of my own world here, its embryonic beginnings,
the bones around which the flesh of the future would grow.
I parked my '76 'Vette at the corner of Riverside Drive and Van Nuys,
ignoring the stares of the curious. I'd forgotten what I was doing and
brought it back with me. So what? Let them think it was some kind of racer.
I couldn't care less. I was lost in thought.
I'd been living my whole life around the same three years. Sure, I'd
gone traveling off to other eras, but those had been just trips. I'd always
returned to 1977 because I'd always thought of it as home.
I'd folded and compressed my whole life into a span of just a few
months.
Consequently, I lived in a world where the landscape never changed.
Never.
They'd been building the new dorm for the college for as long as I
could remember. They'd been grading for the new freeway forever. (Oh, I knew
what the finished structures would look like. I'd even driven the new
freeway; but the time that I knew as home was frozen. Static. Unchanging.)
I'd lived in the same year for over ten subjective years. I'd grown too
used to the idea that home would endure forever. For me, the San Fernando
Valley was a stable entity. I'd forgotten what a dynamically alive city it
was because I'd lost the ability to see its growth
because I no longer traveled linearly through time.
Other people travel through time in a straight line. For them, growth
is a constant process, perceived only when the changes are major ones, or
when there is something to compare them against.
To me, growth is
it doesn't exist. Every time I jump, I expect the world to change. I
never equate any era with any other. Until now, that is.
I knew this city; I'd grown up here but I'd forgot-
ten that it existed. I'd forgotten what it was like to be a
part of the moving timestream, to grow up with a city, to
see it change as you change. . . .
I'd forgotten so much.
So much.
* * *
There was no one at the hospital, of course.
That is, I wasn't there there were no other versions of Daniel Jamieson
Eakins waiting to meet me.
I should have known it, of course. My birthday fell within the range of
changes I'd been making. I was the only me in this timeline. If I wanted to
find another me, I'd have to go outside the scope of my temporal activity.
I'd have to go into the past. Deep into the past.
The only way to escape the effects of any change is to jump back to a
point before it happened.
I'd been making changes for the past two hundred years. If I was to
meet a variant Dan, we'd both have to go back beyond that span.
But how far back?
I stood by the car, jingling my keys indecisively. The one location I
was sure of was this hospital; the one date, my birthday.
Okay
This spot. The middle of the San Fernando Valley.
The date: January 24. My birthday.
one thousand years ago. Exactly.
I got in the car, set the timebelt to include it, and tapped twice
* * *
POP!
I'd been expecting it, but the jump-shock was still severe. The pain of
it is directly proportional to the amount of mass making the jump.
Rubbing myself ruefully, I opened the door and got out.
My Corvette and I were in the middle of a flat brown plain. Scraggly
plants and bushes all around. I recognized the Hollywood Hills to the
southeast. Crisp blue sky. Unreal; no smog. And dry, almost desertlike
ground stretching emptily to the purple-brown mountains that surrounded the
valley. The San Bernardino range had never looked so forbidding; those black
walls at the far northeast end were undimmed by human haze, undwarfed by
human buildings, unscarred by human roads. I gazed in awe; I'd never really
noticed them before.
"Well?" said a female voice behind me. "Are you going to stand there
and admire the view all day?" I whirled
she was beautiful.
Almost my height. Hair the same color brown as mine. Eyes the same
color green, soft and downturned. The same cast of features, only slightly
more delicate. She could have been my sister.
She indicated the car with a nod and a giggle. "Are you planning to
drive somewhere?"
"I uh, no that is I didn't know what I was planning. I Hey, who are
you?"
"Diane."
"Diane? Is that all?"
She twinkled. "Diana Jane Eakins. Hey, what's the matter? Did I say
something wrong?"
"I'm Dan!" I blurted. "Daniel Eakins. Daniel Jamieson Eakins "
"Oh " she said. And then it sunk in. "Oh!"
* * *
The silence was embarrassing.
"Uh . . ."I said. "I have this timebelt."
"So do I. My Aunt Jane gave it to me."
"I got mine from my Uncle Jim."
She pointed to a gazebo-like affair about a hundred yards off. "Would
you like to sit down?"
"Did you bring that with you?"
"Uh-huh. Do you like it?"
I followed her through the weeds. "Well, it's different." Judging from
its distance and the angle from the car, she had put it up in the hospital
parking lot. "It's more comfortable than a sports car," she said.
I shrugged. "I won't deny it." I recognized the gazebo as a variation
of the Komfy-Kamper (1998): "All the comforts of home in a single unit." I
wondered if I should reach out for her hand. She was looking strangely at me
too. I reached out . . .
We walked side by side the short remaining distance.
"Why did you come back here?" I asked.
"To see if anyone else would," she said. "I was lonely."
"Me too," I admitted. "I suddenly discovered I couldn't find myself.
I'd excised my past and there didn't seem to be any me in the future "
"You too? That's what happened to me. I couldn't
even find my Aunt Jane."
" so I thought I'd come looking for a variant Dan
and find out what happened."
I stopped abruptly. I certainly had found a variant Dan. About as
variant as I could get ... I wondered what I was shaped like under those
clothes.
She let go of my hand and took a step back; she cocked her head
curiously. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"You're very pretty."
She flushed, then she recovered. "You're kind of
cute too." She peered closely at me. "I've always wondered what I would
look like as a boy. Now I know; I'd be very handsome." Impulsively she put
her hands on my chest. "And very nicely built too not too much muscle, not
so many as to look brutish; just enough to look manly."
Now it was my turn to be embarrassed. I dropped my gaze to her breasts.
"You can touch me if you want."
I wanted to. I did.
Her breasts were nice.
"I don't wear a bra," she said.
"I noticed."
"Do I pass inspection?" she whispered.
"Oh, yes," I said. "Very much so."
She pressed close to me, she moved her face up to mine. . . .
The kiss lasted for a very long, long time.
* * *
The sun was lowering behind the western hills. The sky was all shades
of purple and orange. Twilight was a gray-blue haze.
We'd been talking for hours. We'd stopped to eat and then we'd talked
some more.
We had pulled the shades on three sides of the gazebo and turned the
heat up. We sat naked in the glow of the electric fire and watched the
sunset.
"The more I look at you, the prettier you get," she murmured.
"You too." I stretched across the heater and kissed her.
"Careful," she said after a moment. "Don't burn anything off. We may
want to use it again."
"I hope so." I kissed her again, while she cupped me protectively. I
moved closer.
We lay there side by side for a while. "I can't get over how good you
feel." Her hands stroked up and down my back, my sides, my legs; my hands
held her shoulders, her breasts. I kissed them gently, I kissed her eyelids
too.
She looked up at me. "I liked having you inside me. It was very good."
"I liked being inside you."
She hugged me tight. "I could stay like this forever."
"Me too."
There was silence. The night gathered softly. Our words hung in the
air.
Finally I said, "You know, we could. We could stay here forever."
"Do you want to ... ?"
"Yes," I whispered. I began to move again. "Oh,
yes."
"Oh, Dan," she gasped. "Oh, my darling, my sweet, sweet Dan "
"Oh, baby, yes " I rearranged my position on top
of her and again the silvery warmth tingled
Exploded.
Delighted.
* * *
slid into me.
He was around me and inside me, his arms and legs and penis; we rocked
and moved together, we fitted like one person. He filled me till I
overflowed, kindled and inflamed
We gasped and giggled and sighed and soared and sang and laughed and
cried and leaped and flew and
dazzled and burst, exploding fireworks, surging fire
We rustled and sighed. And died. And hugged and held on.
He was still within me. Sweet squeeze, warmth. I
held him tight. I loved the feel of him, the taste of him. I
loved the smell of him the sweaty sense of masculine
man. Musky. I melted, under him, around him.
Loved him.
* * *
January night. Cold wind. We pulled the last shade.
There was just one more thing. I had to make it complete.
"Dan," I whispered. "I have to tell you something."
"What?" In the pink light, his face was glowing.
I took a breath. "I I'm not exactly a virgin."
"Of course not," he grinned. "We just took care of that."
"No, that's not what I meant. I wasn't a virgin
before."
"Oh?"
"I mean " I forced myself to go on. I had to tell
him everything or it wouldn't be any good. "I was only a
'technical virgin.' I'd never done it with a boy before.
You were the first."
"Yes, of course," he said quietly. "I should have realized. You only
did it with ..."
"Only Donna and Diana. I mean, I only did it
with myself. When I was Donna, I "
He cut me off gently, "I know."
"Is it all right?" I had to know. "You're not disappointed in me?"
"Of course not. I understand."
"I only did it because I was lonely."
"No," he said slowly, shaking his head. "You wanted
to do it and you enjoyed it. You did it because you're the
only person you can trust, the only person you feel completely at ease
with, and you wanted to express your feelings and your affection. You did it
because you loved yourself"
"I yes, you're right." I couldn't deny it.
"Diana," he whispered. "Think a minute. About
me. I'm both Don and Dan. I'm the male reflection of
you."
His eyes were bright.
"Did you ?" I couldn't finish the question.
But he knew what I meant. He nodded. "We did I did."
I thought about that. Dan. Diane.
Dan. Diane.
Boy, Girl.
Same. Person.
And suddenly I was crying. Crying, sobbing into his arms. "Oh, Dan, I'm
so sorry "
He stroked my hair. "It's all right, sweetheart.
There's nothing to be sorry about, nothing at all."
"I'm so stupid "
"No, you're not. You were smart enough to come
looking for me, weren't you?"
"Oh, no I didn't know what I was looking for. I just didn't want to be
alone anymore."
"Neither did I. I didn't know what I wanted either,
but you're just perfect "
"So are you " I wiped at the tears on his chest. I
didn't know what I was feeling anymore. I felt ripped up
and ripped open. I felt so vulnerable. And at the same
time, I felt everything was all right too. He wasn't me.
But he was. And I couldn't get enough of him. He tasted good. Was I in
love or just infatuated? Or was I trying to prove something to myself? I
don't know. But he was the first man I ever felt I could trust. I started
crying again, I don't know why. "Hold me, Dan, hold me tight. Don't let go.
I want you inside me again."
"Oh, yes, baby. Yes, yes. Yes Oh, Danny, I love you."
"Diane, I love you too!"
* * *
The sensuousness of sex. The maleness of me. The femaleness of her. The
physical sensations of strength and warmth. Flesh against smooth flesh. Firm
resistance, supple yielding.
Sex with Diane is different from any kind of sex I have ever had
before. There is something boyish about her that I find strangely
attractive, yet deliciously feminine. I put my arms around her and she is
neither male nor female, but a little of each. And there is something
feminine in me that she responds to. (Perhaps it is a quality that is common
to both of us and independent of physical gender. An androgynous quality. My
body may be male or it may be female, but I am neither I am me.)
I keep thinking of Danny, and it is hard not to make comparisons
between the two of them, even though I know it is unfair to both. But Danny
and I (Don and I) have been through so much together, have meant so much to
each other.
Diane lacks Danny's intensity (yes), but Danny
could never match her sensuality. The sheer physical delight of her
body, the perfect matching of male to female, the tenderness of her response
to mine; all of these combine to make sex with her an experience that is new
to me. I delight in being with her, in being inside of her, just as she
delights in opening to me. I admit it, I am fascinated by her body, by the
femaleness of her, the geography, the open depths that I plunge into, again
and again. ... I lose all consciousness. All that exists is the feeling, the
incredible wallow of emotion and silly talk and discovery after discovery. I
know what is happening to me and I don't care. I admit it happily. I have
become a horny little schoolboy, not just discovering sex but inventing it
fresh and new, as if it had never existed before.
Well, it hasn't. Not for us.
I see her as something special. Not a new person, no, but another
reflection of myself. Another Danny perhaps and in the most different guise
of all. Yes. Danny with a vagina.
Think of her as he. It is the quality of Danny-ness I see in him that
is so intriguing, so independent of sexuality. There is a Danny trapped
inside that female body screaming to let me in. Just as there is a Diane
inside me.
I cannot help but like it.
We enjoy our physical roles as we have never en-
joyed them before; at least I know I do; but deep inside is
a sense of loss. I think I loved my Danny more. And I
think I know why.
With Danny, the physical forms were identical; the mental roles could
be arbitrary. It was just me and him. We could choose our roles, we could
take turns, we could be pansexual. I didn't have to be male, I didn't have
to be dominant. With Don I could be weak, with Don I could cry.
With Diane, it is different.
I feel limited.
And in a sense, I am. I am limited to the role given me by fate, by
gender. My sex is the one thing about myself I cannot alter. Our bodies
determine and define our roles at least to the extent that I must be a man
to her woman. Despite all the different roles either of us are capable of
playing for each other, ultimately we can only return to the ones already
assigned us. (If this is Danny, then Danny is the only woman here. There are
no tradeoffs anymore. Danny has limited our roles.) There is no other
relationship for either of us. At least, that's how I perceive it.
The relationship is not unenjoyable. Indeed, it is the most joyous of
all. But still, there is that sense of loss . . .
* * *
We have been together how long?
Months, it must be.
We have a home on the edge of prehistory, a villa on the shores of what
someday will be called Mission Bay. It's a sprawling mansion on a deserted
coast, a self-contained unit; it has to be, because we brought it back to
the year 100,000 B.C. A honeymoon cottage for the outcasts of time.
The sea washes blue across yellow sands. Seagulls wheel and dive,
cawing raucously. The sun blazes bright in an azure sky. And the only
footprints are ours. We live a strange kind of life in our timeless world.
Loneliness is unknown to us; yet neither of us ever lacks for privacy.
We see each other only when both of us want it. Never can either force
himself on the other. That's part of being a time traveler.
I cannot journey to her future, nor can she to mine. When we bounce
forward, I am in Danny's world, she is in Diane's. The only place we can
meet is in the past, because only the past is unaffected by both of us.
Should either of us need to be alone, we simply
bounce to a different point in time. (I have seen the ruins
of this mansion standing forlorn and alone, swept by the
sands and washed by the sea, while the sun lies orange in
the west. These walls will be dust by the time of Christ.)
Returning, I am in her arms again. I am there because I want to be
there.
She vanishes too, but only momentarily; she returns in a different
dress and hair style. I know she has been gone longer than I have seen, but
I know she comes back to me with her desire at its fullest. I open my arms.
We have never had an argument. It is impossible when either of you can
disappear at the instant of displeasure. All of our moments are happy ones.
Life with Diane is almost idyllic.
Almost.
Today she told me she was pregnant.
And I'm not sure how I feel about that. There is a sense of joy and
wonder in me but I am also disturbed. Jealous that something else, someone
else, can make her glow with such happiness. The look on her face as she
told me I have seen that intensity only in her climax.
I know I shouldn't be, but I am bothered that I cannot give her such
prolonged intensity of joy. And I am bothered that someone else is inside of
her, someone other than me.
And yet, I'm happy. Happy for her, happy for me. I don't know why, but
I know that this baby must be something special.
It must be.
* * *
The baby proves something that I have suspected
for a long time. My life is out of control. I am no longer
the master of my own destiny.
There is little that I can do with this situation. Except run from it.
Or can I . . . ?
* * *
Being pregnant is a special kind of time.
Within me there is life, helpless and small; I can feel
it move. I can feel it grow. I wait eagerly for the day of its
entrance into the world so I can hold it and touch it, love
it and feed it, hold it to my breasts.
This is a special baby. It will be. I know it will be. I am filled with
wonder. I see my body in the mirror, swollen and beautiful. I run my hands
across my bulging stomach in awed delight. This is something Donna could
never have given me. (I miss her though; I wish she were here to share this
moment. She is, of course. She will be here when I need her.)
Oh, there is discomfort too, more than I had expected the difficulties
in bending over and walking, the back pains and the troubles in the
bathroom, the loginess and the nausea but it's worth it. When I think of the
small beautiful wonder which will soon burst into my life, the whole world
turns pink and giggly. I feel that I'm on the threshold of something big.
* * *
The baby was born this morning.
It is a boy. A beautiful, handsome, healthy boy.
I am delighted. And disappointed. I had wanted a girl.
A girl ...
* * *
In 2013 the first genetic-control drug was put on the market. It
allowed a man and woman to choose the sex of their unborn child.
In 2035 in-utero genetic tailoring became practical.
The technique allowed a woman to determine which of several available
chromosomes in the egg and sperm cells would function as dominants. The only
condition was that the tailoring must be done within the first month of
pregnancy.
In 2110 extra-utero genetic tailoring was widespread. The process
allowed the parent to program the shape of his offspring. A computer-coded
germ plasma could be built, link by amino-acid link, implanted into a
genetically neutral egg, then carefully cultured and developed, eventually
to be implanted inside a womb, either real or artificial.
I do not want to design a whole child. I just want a baby girl. I want
her identical to me. I will have to go back and see Diane before she gets
pregnant, but that should be the easy part.
I will not tell Dan this. I think this is a decision that I have to
make myself. The baby is mine and so is the decision. My son will be a girl.
* * *
The baby was born this morning.
It is a girl. A beautiful, pink little girl.
I am delighted. And disappointed. I had wanted a boy.
A boy . . .
* * *
I will not tell Diane this. I think this is a decision that I have to
make myself (And there are ways that it can be done so that she will never
know. I know when the child was conceived and I know which drugs to take
beforehand. I will have to either replace Danny, or make him take the
injection, but she will never suspect.) My daughter will be a son.
* * *
Why do I keep coming back?
I get on her nerves, she gets on mine. We argue
about the little things; we make a point of fighting with
each other. Why?
Last night we were lying in bed, side by side, just lying there, not
doing anything, just listening to each other breathe and staring at the
ceiling. She said, "Danny?"
I said, "Yes?"
She said, "It's over, isn't it?"
I nodded. "Yes."
She turned to me then and slid her arms around me. Her cheeks were wet
too.
I held her tight. "I'm sorry," I said. "I wanted it to work so much."
She sniffed. "Me too."
We held on to each other for a long time. After a while I shifted my
position, then she shifted hers. She rolled over on her back and I slid on
top of her. She was so slender, so intense. We moved together in silence,
hearing only the sound of our breathing. We remembered and pretended, each
of us lost in our own thoughts, and wishing that it hadn't come to this.
The sheets were cool in the night and she was warm
and silky. If only it could be like this all the time. . . .