Time Travelers Strictly Cash by Spider Robinson Read Free Book Online Page B

began fleeing.
    -“Reb,” he said, blood starting down his chin, “whoever orders this incredible circus, you and your fucking desk can’t outwit Him! Archer died, eleven years ago. You cannot have him back. If you’ll only listen to me, I can-“
    She screamed again and leaped for him. Her intention was plainly to kill him with her hands, and he knew she was more than capable of it, and again he stood his ground.
    And saw her foot slip in the puddle on the floor, watched one flailing arm snarl in the cables that trailed from the casing of the pineal reatarter and yank two of them loose, saw her land face first in water at the same instant as the furiously sparking cables, watched her buck and thrash and begin to die.
    Frantically he located the generator that fed the device and sprang for it. Ruiz-Sanchez blocked his way, holding a surgical laser like a dueling knife. Dimsdale froze, and the doctor locked eyes with him. Long after his ears and nose told him. it was too late, Dimsdale stood motionless.
    At last he slumped. “Quite right,” he murmured softly. Ruiz-Sanchez continued to aim the laser at his heart. They were alone in the room.
    “I have no reason to think this room has been bugged by anyone but Rebecca,” Dimsdale said wearily. “And the only thing you know about me is that I won’t kill innocent people. Don’t try to understand what has happened here. YOu and your people can go in peace. I’ll clean up here. I won’t even bother threatening you.”
    Ruiz-Sanchez nodded and lowered the laser. “Go collect your team, Doctor, before they get themselves into trouble. You can certify her accidental death for me.
    The doctor nodded again and began to leave.
    “Wait.”
    He turned.
    Dimsdale gestured toward the open cryotank. “How do I pull the plug on this?”
    Ruiz-Sanchez did not hestiate. “The big switch. There, by the coils at this end.” He left.
     
    An hour and a half later, Dimsdale had achieved a meeting of minds with her chief security officer and her personal secretary, and had been left alone in the den. He sat at her desk and let his gaze rest on the terminal keyboard. At this moment thousands of people were scurrying and thinking furiously; her whole mammoth empire was in chaos. Dimsdale sat at its effective center, utterly at peace. He was in no hurry; he had all the time in the world, and everything he had ever wanted.
    We do get smarter every time, he thought. I’m sure of it.
    He made the desk yield up the tape of what had transpired in the cryotheater, checked one detail of the tape very carefully, satisfied himself that it was the only copy, and wiped it. Then, because he was in no hurry, he ordered scotch.
    When she’s wenty, I’ll only be fifty-seven, be thought happily. Not even middle-aged. It’s going to work. This time it’s going to work for both of us. He set down the scotch and told the desk to locate him a girl who had been born at one minute and forty-three seconds before noon. After a moment, it displayed data.
    “Orphan, by God!” he said aloud. “That’s a. break.”
    He took a long drink of scotch on the strength of it, and then he told the desk to begin arranging for the adoption. But it was the courtship he was thinking about.
     
    Concerning “Soul Search”:
     
    I have always felt faintly guilty about the Campbell Award.
    Every year the members of the World Science Fiction Society* vote on the Hugo Awards for professional and fannish achievement in sf. Since 1973 they have also voted the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. It is technically a non-Hugo, and has been privately sponsored by Conde-Nast Publications, former publishers of Analog (formerly Astounding), the magazine which the late John Campbell used to invent modem science fiction. Davis Publications, Analog’s new owner, will continue the tradition.
    The award was originally suggested by Ben Bova, who was named editor of Analog when John died. Anyone whose first professional sf