Mastodonia

TWELVE

We sat at breakfast, with Hiram finishing his second helping of ham and eggs. Bowser dozed on his blanket in the corner.

“The one thing in question,” said Rila, “is whether we can trust Catface.”

“You can trust him, ma’am,” said Hiram. “I had a long talk with him before I came in to get you. He’s nice folks. Just like you and Mr. Steele.”

“Well, that is fine,” said Rila, “but we must bear in mind that he is an alien. And a most peculiar one.”

“Maybe not,” I said. “We don’t know what aliens would be like. Compared with other aliens, he may not be peculiar.”

“Oh, you know what I mean. All head, no body.

Or at least he hides his body. All you can see is a face sticking out of a tree or bush.”

“Ezra saw a body. That night Ranger had Catface up a tree and Ezra drew a bead on him, but didn’t shoot.”

“It was dark,” said Rila. “Ezra couldn’t see too much. Just the face when it looked at him. What I mean about not trusting him is that he may have a different ethical code, very likely has, a different way of looking at things. What might seem wrong to us might not be wrong at all to him.”

“He’s been around ever since people settled here.

A hundred years and more. He probably had some contact with the Indians long before then. He’s been watching all the time. He knows what humans are like. He’s astute; he’d soak up a lot of information.

He knows what to expect of humans, probably something of what they would expect of him.”

“Asa, are you ready to trust him, just flat out?”

“No, I guess I do have some reservations.”

Hiram got up from the table and put on his cap.

“Me and Bowser are going for a walk,” he said.

Bowser got up stiffly.

“Don’t you want to sleep?” I asked. “You’ve been up all night.”

“Later on, Mr. Steele.”

“Remember, not a word of this to anyone.”

“I’ll remember,” said Hiram. “I promised. I gave my word. on it.”

For a time after he left, we sat drinking second cups of coffee. Finally Rila said, “If it all stands up, if it really works all right, we have got it made.”

“You mean we can go into time.”

“Not us. Other people. People who will pay us for being sent in time. A time-traveling service. We’ll sell trips in time.”

“It could be dangerous.”

“Sure, it could be dangerous. We’ll draw up contracts absolving us of risks. The travelers will be the one who take the chances, not us.”

“We’d need a lawyer.”

“I know just the man. In Washington. He could help us with the government.”

“You think the government might want to step in?”

“You can be sure they would. Once we get going, everyone will want to get into the act. Remember, you were afraid of the university horning in when you dug up all that stuff.”

“Yes, I told you that.”

“We can’t afford to let anyone horn in on this.

This is ours.”

“I suppose we could interest some universities or museums,” I said. “There are a lot of events in the past they would want to have a look at. Be willing to pay money to look at. But there would be problems.

There’d have to be some rules and regulations. You couldn’t go back to the siege of Troy lugging cameras.

You’d have to speak the language of the day. You’d have to blend in. Wear the right kinds of clothes.

Know the customs. If you intruded in any way, you could be in trouble; there would even be the chance that you would influence the very factors you set out to study. You might even change history.”

“You have a point there,” said Rila. “We’ll have to set up a body of time-traveling ethics. Where the travelers come in contact with humans, that is. Beyond the human era, it wouldn’t matter too much what you did.”

“Like going back to hunt big game?”

“Asa, that’s where the money is. Universities couldn’t pay enough to make it worth our while. They are always strapped for funds. But big game hunters are a different matter. It used to be that a hunter could go on safari in Africa and bag a lot of different heads. Or in Asia. But that is all gone now. If you go, it’s on a very limited license. They run these so-called camera safaris, but for the dyed-in-the-wool hunter, they can’t be much fun. Imagine what a hunter would be willing to pay for a go at a mastodon or sabertooth.”

“Or a dinosaur,” I said.

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” she said. “We have to pick our shots. Not necessarily hunting exclusively. There could be a lot of other things. We could go back or send someone back to pick up some Attic pottery. You can’t imagine what stuff like that would sell for. A few Athenian owls for the coin collectors. Or, more recently, some of the early stamps.

We could go to South Africa and pick diamonds off the ground. That’s how the early diamonds were found.

Just picked up off the ground.”

“But not too many of them. Only a few here and there. The Star of Africa, sure. But that was sheer luck. You could go around for years looking at the ground …”

“Maybe that was the way it was, Asa, because we, a few years from now, got there first. They only found what we missed.”

I laughed at her. “You’re money-hungry, Rila. All you talk of is money. How to merchandise time travel, how to sell it to the highest bidder. It seems to me it should be used for research. There are so many historical problems. There are geological periods about which we know so little.”

“Later on,” she said. “We can do all of that later on. But we have to make a financial success of it before we can afford to do the things you are talking about. You say I’m money-hungry. Maybe I am. It’s been my life. I’ve spent my life building up a business, seeing that it paid. And this thing, before we can even get it started, will cost us money. The lawyer I have in mind doesn’t come cheap. We’ll have to build a fence around the property and hire guards to keep out the hordes of visitors once the news is broken.

We’ll have to put up an administration building and staff it. We may need public relations people.”

“Rila, where are we going to get the money?”

“I can get it.”

“We had that out the other day. Remember?”

“But this is different. Then I was offering to help you stay on here. This is a business venture. The two of us together. You own the land, you laid the foundation. All I do is get some money for us to begin the operation.”

She stared across the table at me. “Or don’t you want it that way? I’m horning in. Maybe you don’t want that. If that’s the case, say so. It’s your land, your Catface, your Hiram. I’m just a pushy bitch.”

“Maybe you’re a pushy bitch,” I said, “but I want you in with me. It’s not something we can throw away, and I’d mess it up without you. It just shook me up, you talking about nothing but how we could merchandise it. I see your point, but to justify our position. some of the time-travel schedule should be allocated to research.”

“It’s strange how easily we accept the premise,” she said. “Time travel is something that one automatically rejects as impossible. And yet, we sit here planning for it, basing our belief on Catface and Hiram.”

“We have more than that,” I said. “I did travel into time. No question about it. It couldn’t be delusion.

I was there for an hour or so — well, actually, I don’t know how long I was in the Pleistocene. Long enough to walk from here down to the river and back. And there are Bowser’s Folsom point and the fresh dinosaur bones. Intellectually, I’m still fairly sure it’s impossible, but actually I know it can be done.”

“Our one weak link,” she said, “is Hiram. If he is not telling us the truth, if he’s playing games with us…”

“I think I can vouch for him. I’ve been decent to him while many others haven’t, and he worships Bowser. Almost never a day went past, even before all this, when he didn’t show up here. I think, as well, that he hasn’t the intellect to lie.”

“But if he talks. Before we’re ready to let anyone know.”

“He won’t intentionally. Someone may ask him questions and worm some of it out of him, or he may get to talking and a slip of the tongue will give it away.

He’s not all that bright.”

“I suppose it is a chance we have to take. In a little while, it won’t matter what he says.”

She rose from the table and began picking up the dishes. “I’ll have to make a few phone calls,” she said.

“To some people in New York and the attorney in Washington. In a day or two, I’ll have to travel east for a few days. I’d like you to come along with me.”

I shook my head. “I’ll leave it to you. I’ll stay here and hold the fort. Someone should be here.”