The Second Mack Reynolds Megapack. Mack Reynolds

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СКАЧАТЬ enough coinage in the world to buy your properties.

      There is no need for there to be. I will be spending it as rapidly as you can convert my holdings into gold or its credit equivalent. The money will be put back into circulation over and over again.”

      Piedmont was aghast. “But why?” He held his hands up in dismay. “Can’t you realize the repercussions of such a move? Mr. Smith, you must explain the purpose of all this…”

      Mr. Smith said, “The purpose should be obvious. And the pseudonym of Mr. Smith is no longer necessary. You may call me Shirey—Professor Alan Shirey. You see, gentlemen, the question with which you presented me, whether or not time travel was possible, became consumingly interesting. I have finally solved, I believe, all the problems involved. I need now only a fantastic amount of power to activate my device. Given such an amount of power, somewhat more than is at present produced on the entire globe, I believe I shall be able to travel in time.”

      “But, but why? All this, all this… Cartels, governments, wars...” Warren Piedmont’s aged voice wavered, faltered.

      Mr. Smith—Professor Alan Shirey—looked at him strangely. “Why, so that I may travel back to early Venice where I shall be able to make the preliminary steps necessary for me to secure sufficient funds to purchase such an enormous amount of power output.”

      “And six centuries of human history,” said Rami Mardu, Asiatic representative, so softly as hardly to be heard. “Its meaning is no more than this...?”

      Professor Shirey looked at him impatiently.

      “Do I understand you to contend, sir, that there have been other centuries of human history with more meaning?”

      THE BUSINESS, AS USUAL

      AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION

      This is one of those stories that you write in a couple of hours, send to the agent and forget about. However, to my surprise, the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction picked it up in 1951 and, since then, I have sold it to anthologies and in translation at least once a year. If I had fifty stories that sold like this, I could retire. They even put it on television once in Belgium. How you could make a TV show of it I haven’t the vaguest idea, but there you are. I suspect that long after I have gone to my reward— which is moot—“The Business, As Usual” will still crop up.

      —Mack Reynolds

      * * * *

      “Listen,” the time traveler said to the first pedestrian who came by, “I’m from the twentieth century. I’ve only got fifteen minutes and then I’ll go back. I guess it’s too much to expect you to understand me, eh?”

      “Certainly I understand you.”

      “Hey! You talk English fine. How come?”

      “We call it Amer-English. I happen to be a student of dead languages.”

      “Swell! But, listen, I only got a few minutes. Let’s get going.”

      “Get going?”

      “Yeah, yeah. Look, don’t you get it? I’m a time traveler. They picked me to send into the future. I’m important.”

      “Ummm. But you must realize that we have time travelers turning up continuously these days.”

      “Listen, that rocks me, but I just don’t have time to go into it, see? Let’s get to the point.”

      “Very well. What have you got?”

      “What d’ya mean, what’ve I got?”

      The other sighed. “Don’t you think you should attempt to acquire some evidence that you have been in the future? I can warn you now, the paradoxes involved in time travel prevent you from taking back any knowledge which might alter the past. On your return, your mind will be blank in regard to what happened here.”

      The time traveler blinked. “Oh?”

      “Definitely. However, I shall be glad to make a trade with you.”

      “Listen, I get the feeling I came into this conversation half a dozen sentences too late. What d’ya mean, a trade?

      I am willing to barter something of your century for something of mine, although, frankly, there is little in your period that is of other than historical interest to us.” The pedestrian’s eyes held a gleam now. He cleared his throat. “However, I have here an atomic pocket-knife. I hesitate to even tell you of the advantages it has over the knives of your period.”

      “Okay. I got only ten minutes left, but I can see you’re right. I’ve got to get something to prove I was here.”

      “My knife would do it.” The pedestrian nodded.

      “Yeah, yeah. Listen, I’m a little confused, like. They picked me for this job at the last minute—didn’t want to risk any of these professor guys, see? That’s the screwiest knife I ever saw, let me have it for my evidence.”

      “Just a moment, friend. Why should I give you my knife? What can you offer in exchange?”

      “But I’m from the twentieth century.”

      “Ummm. And I’m from the thirtieth.”

      The time traveler looked at him for a long moment. Finally, “Listen, pal, I don’t have a lot of time. Now, for instance, my watch.

      “Ummm. And what else?”

      “Well, my money here.”

      “Of interest only to a numismatist.”

      “Listen, I gotta have some evidence I been in the thirtieth century!”

      “Of course. But business is business, as the proverb goes.”

      “I wish the hell I had a gun.”

      “I have no use for a gun in this age,” the other said primly.

      “No, but I have,” the time traveler muttered. “Look, fella, my time is running out by the second. What d’ya want? You see what I got—clothes, my wallet, a little money, a key ring, a pair of shoes.”

      “I’m willing to trade, but your possessions are of small value. Now, some art object—an original Al Capp or something.”

      The time traveler was plaintive. “Do I look like I’d be carrying around art objects? Listen, I’ll give you everything I got but my pants for that screwy knife.”

      “Oh, you want to keep your pants, eh? What’re you trying to do, Anglo me down? Or does your period antedate the term?”

      “Anglo…what? I don’t get it.”

      “Well, I’m quite an etymologist—”

      “That’s too bad, but—”

      “Not at all, a fascinating hobby,” the pedestrian said. “Now, as to the phrase ‘Anglo me down.’ СКАЧАТЬ