The Best Alternate History Stories Of The Twentieth Century Part 22

As always, when the mutual hostility which complemented our mutual attraction was eased, Barbara spoke of her work. In spite of such occasional confidences, it was still not her habit to talk of it with me. That intimacy was obviously reserved for Ace, and I didn't begrudge it him, for after all he understood it and I didn't. But now I suppose she was so full of the subject she could hardly hold back, even from one who could hardly distinguish between thermodynamics and kinesthetics.

"Hodge," she said, gray eyes greenish with excitement, "I'm not going to write a book."

This hardly seemed startling. "That's nice," I answered idly. "New, too. Saves time, paper, ink. Sets a different standard; from now on scholars will be known as 'Jones, who didn't write The Theory of Tidal Waves,' 'Smith, un-author of Gas and Its Properties,' or 'Backmaker, non-recorder of Gettysburg and After.' "

"Silly. I only meant it's become customary to spend a lifetime formulating principles-then someone else comes along and puts your principles into practice. It seems more sensible for me to demonstrate my own conclusions instead of writing about them."

I still didn't grasp the import. "You're going to demonstrate-uh...?"

"Cosmic ent.i.ty."

"You mean you're going to turn matter into s.p.a.ce or something like that?"

"Something like that. I intend to attempt translating matter-energy into terms of s.p.a.ce-time."

I started up. "You're going to-" I groped for words. "Build an engine which will move through time?"

"That's putting it crudely. But it's close enough for a layman."

"You once told me your work was theoretical. That you were no vulgar mechanic."

"I'll become one."

"Barbara, you're crazy! As a philosophical abstraction this theory of yours is interesting-"

"Thank you!"

"Barbara, listen to me. Midbin-"

"I haven't the faintest interest in Midbin's stodgy fantasies."

"He has in yours, though, and so have I. Don't you see, this decision is based on the fantasy of going back through time to-uh-injure your mother-"

"Midbin is a coa.r.s.e, stupid, insensate lout. He has taught the dumb to speak, but he's too much of a fool to understand anyone of normal intelligence. He had a set of idiotic theories about diseased emotions and he fits all facts into them even if it means chopping them up to do it or inventing new ones to piece them out. 'Injure my mother' indeed! I have no more interest in her than she ever had in me."

"Ah, Barbara-"

" 'Ah, Barbara,' " she mimicked. "Run along to your pompous windbag of a Midbin, or your cow-eyed Spanish strumpet-"

"Barbara, I'm talking as a friend. Leave Midbin and Catty and personalities out of it and just look at it this way. Don't you see the difference between promulgating a theory and trying a practical demonstration which will certainly appear to the world as going over the borderline into charlatanism? Like a spiritualist medium or-"

"That's enough! 'Charlatan.' You unspeakable guttersnipe. What do you know about anything beyond the seduction of cretins? Go back to your trade, you errand boy!"

"Barbara-"

Her hand caught me across my mouth. Then she strode away.

The fellows of Haggershaven were not enthusiastic for her project. Nineteen fifty was a bad year; the war was coming closer. At the least, what was left of United States' independence would likely be extinguished. Our energies at the haven had to be directed toward survival rather than new and expensive ventures. Still, Barbara Haggerwells was a famous figure commanding great respect; reluctantly the fellows voted an appropriation.

We had not spoken since the day of the quarrel, nor was there inclination on either side toward reconciliation. She and Ace with a group of the fellows attacked the preliminary job of remodelling an old barn furiously, sawing and hammering, bolting iron beams together, piping in gas for reflected lights which allowed them to work into the night. As for me, I had little interest. I did not believe Barbara Haggerwells would play a further part in my life.

For I finally saw Catty as she really was: loyal, steadfast, sustaining. Suddenly, I was utterly unable to understand how I had hesitated so long. Barbara now seemed brittle and masculine beside Catty. It was Catty with whom I wanted to spend the rest of my life and I regretted wasted time.

Something of this I told her and begged forgiveness.

"Dear Hodge," she answered, "there is nothing to forgive. Love is not a business transaction, nor a case at law in which justice is sought, nor a reward for having good qualities. I understand you, Hodge, better, I think, than you understand yourself. You are not satisfied with what is readily obtained; otherwise you would have been content back in-what is the name?-Wappinger Falls. I have known this for a long time and I could, I think (you must excuse my feminine vanity), have enticed you at any moment by pretending fickleness. Besides, I think you will make a better husband for realizing your incapacity to deal with Barbara."

I can't say I enjoyed this speech. I felt, in fact, rather humiliated, or at least healthily humbled. Which was no doubt what she intended, and as it should be. It also revealed that Catty bore no animosity toward her former rival. This didn't surprise me, but Barbara's att.i.tude did, for as soon as Catty's engagement to me was known the two girls became very friendly. I almost wrote, "became fast friends," but this would overlook their lack of common interests on which to build genuine friendship. However, Catty now spent hours with Barbara and Ace in the workshop (as they called the converted barn) and her real admiration for Barbara grew. Her conversation frequently turned to Barbara's genius, courage and imagination.

Naturally this didn't please me too well, but I could hardly ask Catty to forego society I had so recently found enchanting, nor establish a taboo against mention of a name I had lately whispered with ardor. Besides, I was exhilarated by my own plans. I had completed my notes for Chancellorsville to the End, and Catty and I were to be married as soon as volume one was published-shortly after my thirtieth and Catty's twenty-fourth birthday. Although there was no doubt the book would bring an offer from one of the great Confederate universities, Catty was firm for one of the miniature cottages or even smaller apartments the haven provided for married fellows.

From Catty's talk I knew Barbara was running into increasing difficulties now the workshop was complete and actual construction of what was referred to-with unnecessary crypticism, I thought-as HX-1 had begun. The impending war created scarcities, particularly of such materials as steel and copper, of which latter metal HX-1 seemed inordinately greedy. I was not surprised when the fellows apologetically refused Barbara a new appropriation.

The next day Catty said, "Hodge, you know the haven wouldn't take my money."

"And quite right too. Let the rest of us put in everything we get. We owe it to the haven anyway. But you should keep your independence."

"Hodge, I'm going to give it all to Barbara for her HX-1."

"What? Oh, nonsense!"

"Is it any more nonsensical for me to put in money I didn't do anything to get than for her and Ace to put in time and knowledge and labor?"

"Yes, because she's got a crazy idea and Ace has never been quite sane as far as Barbara's concerned. If you go ahead and do this you'll be crazy as they are."

When Catty laughed I remembered with a pang the long months when that lovely sound had been strangled by terror inside her so that these priceless instants were irrevocably lost. I also thought with shame of my own failure and contumely. Had I appreciated her when her need was greatest I might have changed the long and painful process which restored her voice in Midbin's way, or at least eased and quickened it.

"Perhaps I'm crazy-do you think they would admit me to fellowship on that basis? Anyway, I believe in Barbara, even if the fellows don't. Not that I'm criticizing the haven. You were right to be cautious, you have a great deal to consider. I haven't. I believe in her-or perhaps I feel I owe her something. Anyway, with my money she can finish her project. I only tell you this because you may not want to marry me under the circ.u.mstances."

"You think I'm marrying you for your money?"

She smiled. "Dear Hodge. You are in some ways so young. No, I know very well you aren't marrying me for money. That would be too practical, too grown up. I think you might not want to marry a woman who'd give all her money away. Especially to Barbara Haggerwells."

"Catty, are you doing this absurd thing to get rid of me? Or to test me?"

This time she again laughed aloud. "Now I'm sure you will marry me after all and turn out to be a puzzled but amenable husband. You are my true Hodge, who studies a war because he can't understand anything simpler or subtler."

She wasn't to be dissuaded from the quixotic gesture. I might not understand subtleties but I was sure I understood Barbara well enough. Foreseeing her request for more funds would be turned down, she had deliberately cultivated Catty in order to use her. Now she'd gotten what she wanted she'd undoubtedly drop Catty or revert to her accustomed virulent abuse.

She did neither. If anything, the amity grew. Catty's vocabulary added words like "magnet," "coil," "induction," "particle," "light-year," "continuum" and many others either incomprehensible or uninteresting to me. Breathlessly she described the strange, asymmetric structure taking shape in the workshop, while my mind was busy with Ewell's Corps and Parrott guns and the weather chart of southern Pennsylvania for July 1863.

The great publishing firm of Ticknor, Harcourt & Knopf contracted for my book-there was no publisher in the United States equipped to handle it-and sent me a sizable advance in Confederate dollars which became even more sizable converted into United States' money. I read the proofs of volume one in a state of semi-consciousness, sent the inevitable telegram changing a footnote on page 99, and waited for the infuriating mails to bring me my complimentary copies. The day after they arrived (with a horrifying typographical error right in the middle of page 12), Catty and I were married.

Perhaps reticence in this narrative has given less than a picture of my wife. I can only say that no man could ask for one more beautiful, finer or more desirable. With the approval of the fellows, I used part of the publisher's advance for a honeymoon. We spent it going over some of the battlefields of the War of Southron Independence.

We settled down in the autumn of 1951, I to work on volume two, Catty to help me and keep house. Somewhat, I admit, to my disappointment, she resumed her daily visit to Barbara's workshop and again regaled me with accounts of my ex-sweetheart's progress.

HX-1 was to be completed in the late spring or early summer. I was not surprised that Barbara's faith survived actual construction of the thing, but that such otherwise level-headed people as Ace and Catty could envisage breathlessly the miracles about to happen was beyond me. Ace, even after all these years, was still bemused-but Catty...?

Just before the turn of the year I got the following letter:

LEE & WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY.

Department of History Leesburg, District of Calhounia, CSA.

December 19, 1951 Mr. Hodgins M. Backmaker "Haggershaven"

York, Pennsylvania, USA.

Sir: On page 407 of Chancellorsville to the End, volume I, Turning Tides, you write, "Chronology and topography-timing and the use of s.p.a.ce-were to be the decisive factors, rather than population and industry. Stuart's detachment, which might have proved disastrous, turned out extraordinarily fortunate for Lee, as we shall see in the next volume. Of course the absence of cavalry might have been decisive if the Round Tops had not been occupied by the Southrons on July 1..."

Now, sir, evidently in your forthcoming a.n.a.lysis of Gettysburg you hold (as I presume most Yankees do) to the theory of fortuitousness. We Southrons naturally ascribe the victory to the supreme genius of General Lee, regarding the factors of time and s.p.a.ce not as forces in themselves but as opportunities for the display of his talents.

Needless to say, I hardly expect you to change your opinions, rooted as they must be in national pride. I only ask that before you commit them, and the conclusions shaped by them, to print that you satisfy yourself, as an historian, of their validity in this particular case. In other words, sir, as one of your readers (and may I add, one who has enjoyed your work), I should like to be a.s.sured that you have studied this cla.s.sic battle as carefully as you have the engagements described in volume I.

With earnest wishes for your success, I remain, sir, cordially yours, Jefferson Davis Polk

This letter from Dr. Polk, the foremost historian of our day, author of the monumental biography, The Great Lee, produced a crisis in my life. Had the Confederate professor pointed out flaws in my work, or even reproached me for undertaking it at all with inadequate equipment, I would, I trust, have acknowledged the reproof and continued to the best of my ability. But this letter was an accolade. Without condescension Dr. Polk admitted me to the ranks of serious historians and besought me as an equal to consider the depth of evaluation.

The truth is I was not without my own increasing doubts. Doubts I had not allowed to rise to the surface of my mind and disturb my plans. Polk's letter brought them into the open.

I had read everything available. I had been over the ground between the Maryland line, South Mountain, Carlisle and the haven so that I could draw a detail map from memory. I had turned up diaries, letters and accounts which had never been published. Yet, with all this, I was not sure I had the whole story, even in the sense of wholeness that historians, knowing they can never achieve a knowledge of every detail, accept. I was not sure that what I thought was the final and just estimate was really either one, or that I had the grand scene in perfectly proper perspective. I admitted to myself the possibility I had perhaps been too rash, too precipitate, in undertaking Chancellorsville to the End. I knew the shadowy sign-the one which says in effect, You are ready-had not been given. My confidence was shaken.

What could I do? The entire work was contracted for. The second volume was promised for delivery some eighteen months hence. My notes for it were complete; this was no question of revising, but of wholly re-examining, revaluing and probably discarding them for an entirely new start. It was a job so much bigger than the original, one so discouraging I felt I could not face it-and yet I knew it would be corrupt to produce a work lacking certain conviction.

Catty responded to my awkward recapitulation in a way at once heartening and strange. "Hodge," she said, "you're changing and developing-and for the better, even though I love you as you were. Don't be afraid to put the book aside for a year-ten years if necessary. You must do it to satisfy yourself; never mind what the publishers or the public say. But Hodge, you mustn't, in your anxiety, try any shortcuts. Promise me that."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Catty dear. There are no shortcuts in the writing of history."

She looked at me thoughtfully. "Remember that, Hodge. Oh, remember it well."

IX.

I could not bring myself to follow the promptings of my conscience and Catty's advice, nor could I use my notes as though Dr. Polk's letter had never come to shatter my complacency. As a consequence I worked not at all, thus adding to my feelings of guilt and unworthiness. I wandered about the haven, fretful and irritable, interrupting more diligent fellows and generally making myself a nuisance. Inevitably I found my way into Barbara's workshop.

She and Ace had done a thorough job on the old barn. Iron beams held up a catwalk running in a circle about ten feet overhead. On the catwalk there were at intervals what appeared to be batteries of telescopes, all pointed inward and downward at the center of the floor. Just inside the columns was a continuous ring of clear gla.s.s, perhaps four inches in diameter, fastened to the beams with gla.s.s hooks. On closer inspection the ring proved not to be in one piece, but in sections, ingeniously held together with gla.s.s couplings. Back from this circle, around the walls, were various engines, all enclosed except for dial faces and regulators. From the roof was suspended a large, polished reflector.

There was no one in the barn and I wandered about, cautiously avoiding the various pieces of apparatus whose purpose and operation were completely mysterious to me. For a moment I meditated-meanly perhaps-that all this had been paid for by my wife's money. Then I berated myself. Catty owed all she had to the haven, as I did. True, the money might have been put to better use than this one of encouraging a senseless project, but there was no guarantee that it would have been more productive allotted to astronomy or zoology. During eight years at the haven I'd seen many promising schemes come to nothing.

"Like it, Hodge?"

Barbara had come up, unheard, behind me. This was the first time we had been alone together since our break, two years before.

"It looks like a tremendous amount of work," I evaded.

"It was a tremendous amount of work. This construction has been the least of it. Now it's done. Or has begun-depending how you look at it."

"All done?"

She nodded, her face triumphant. "First test today."

"Oh well... in that case-"

"Don't go, Hodge-please. I meant to ask you and Catty to the more formal trial, but now you're here for the preliminary I'm glad. Ace, Father and Midbin'll be along in a minute."

"Midbin?"

"I insisted. It'll be nice to show him the mind can produce something besides fantasies and hysterical hallucinations."

I began to speak, then swallowed the words. The dig at Catty was insignificant beside the supreme confidence, the abnormal a.s.surance prompting the invitation to witness a test which could only reveal the impossibility of applying her cherished theories. I felt an overwhelming pity. "Surely," I said at last, seeking to make some preparation for the disillusionment that was bound to come, "surely you don't expect it to work the first time?"

"Why not? There are bound to be minor adjustments to be made, allowances for erratic chronology caused by phenomena like the pull of comets and so forth. It may be some time before Ace can set me down at the exact year, month, day, hour and minute agreed upon. But the fact of s.p.a.ce-time-energy-matter correspondence can just as well be established this afternoon as next year."

She was unaccountably at ease for someone whose lifework was about to be weighed. I have shown more nervousness in discussing a disputed date with the honorary secretary of a local historical society.

"Sit down," she invited; "there's nothing to do or see till Ace comes. I've missed you, Hodge."

I felt this was a dangerous remark, and wished I'd stayed far away from the workshop. I hooked my leg over a stool-there were no chairs-and coughed to hide the fact I was afraid to answer, I've missed you too, and afraid not to.

"Tell me about your own work, Hodge. Catty says you're having difficulties."

I was annoyed with Catty, but whether for confiding in Barbara or specifically for revealing something unheroic, I didn't stop to consider. At any rate this annoyance probably diluted the feeling I was somehow disloyal in conversing with Barbara at all. Or it may be the old, long-established bond-I almost wrote, of sympathy, but it was so much more complex than the word indicates-was reawakened by proximity and put me in the mood to tell my troubles. It is even possible I had the altruistic purpose of fortifying Barbara against inevitable disappointment on a misery-loves-company basis. Be that as it may, I found myself pouring out the whole story.

She jumped up and put her hands on my shoulders. I would not be truthful if I said that, looking into her eyes, gray and warm, I did not feel some reciprocation. "Hodge! It's wonderful-don't you see?"

"Oh..." I was completely confused. "I... uh..."

"Look: now you can go back-back to the past in your own person and see everything with your own eyes, instead of relying on second- or third-hand accounts. You can verify every fact, study every move, every actor. You can write history as no one ever did before, for you'll be writing it as a witness, yet with the perspective of a different period. You'll be taking the mind of the present, with its judgment and its knowledge of the patterns, back to receive the impressions of the past. It almost seems HX-1 was devised especially for this."

There was no doubt she believed, that she was really and unselfishly glad her work could aid mine. I was overcome by pity, helpless to soften the blow of disillusionment to fall so soon, and filled with an irrational hatred of the great apparatus she had built and which was about to destroy her.

I was saved from having to mask my emotions by the arrival of her father, Ace and Midbin. Thomas Haggerwells began tensely, "Barbara, Ace says you intend to test this-this thing on yourself. Is that true?"

Midbin didn't wait for her answer. I thought, with something of a shock, Midbin has gotten old; I never noticed it. "Listen to me. There's no point now in saying part of your mind realizes the impossibility of this demonstration and that it's willing for you to annihilate yourself in the attempt and so escape from conflicts which have no resolution-"

Ace Dorn, who looked as strained as they, in contrast to Barbara's ease, growled, "Let's go."

She smiled rea.s.suringly at us. "Please, Father, don't worry. And Oliver..."