David Gerrold - The Man Who Folded Himself

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2024-12-14 0 0 385.9KB 102 页 5.9玖币

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This book is for Larry Niven, a good

friend who believes that time travel is

impossible. He's probably right.

Oh wad some power the giftie gie us

To see oursels as others see us!

It was frae monie a blunder free us,

An foolish notion.

—Robert Burns

To a Louse, stanza 8

* * *

In the box was a belt. And a manuscript.

* * *

I hadn't seen Uncle Jim in months.

He looked terrible. Shrunken. His skin hung in

wrinkled folds, his complexion was gray, and he was thin

and stooped. He seemed to have aged ten years. Twenty.

The last time I'd seen him, we were almost the same

height. Now I realized I was taller.

"Uncle Jim!" I said. "Are you all right?"

He shook off my arm. "I'm fine, Danny. Just a little

tired, that's all." He came into my apartment. His gait

was no longer a stride, now just a shuffle. He lowered

himself to the couch with a sigh.

"Can I get you anything?"

He shook his head. "No, I don't have that much

time. We have some important business to take care of

How old are you, boy?" He peered at me carefully.

"Huh—? I'm nineteen. You know that."

"Ah." He seemed to find that satisfactory. "Good. I

was afraid I was too early, you looked so young—" He

stopped himself. "How are you doing in school?"

"Fine." I said it noncommittally. The university was

a bore, but Uncle Jim was paying me to attend. Four

hundred dollars a week, plus my apartment and my car.

And an extra hundred a week for keeping my nose clean.

"You don't like it though, do you?"

I said, "No, I don't." Why try to tell him I did? He'd

know it for the lie it was.

"You want to drop out?"

I shrugged. "I could live without it."

"Yes, you could." he agreed. He looked like he

wanted to say something else, but stopped himself in-

stead. "I won't give you the lecture on the value of an

education. You'll find it out for yourself in time. And be-

sides, there are other ways to learn." He coughed; his

whole chest rattled. He was so thin. "Do you know how

much you're worth right now?"

"No. How much?"

He pursed his lips thoughtfully; the wrinkled skin

folded and unfolded. "One hundred and forty-three mil-

lion dollars."

I whistled. "You're kidding."

"I'm not kidding."

"That's a lot of money."

"It's been properly handled."

One hundred and forty-three million dollars—!

"Where is it now?" I asked. Stupid question.

"In stocks, bonds, properties. Things like that."

"I can't touch it then, can I?"

He looked at me and smiled. "I keep forgetting,

Danny, how impatient you were—are." He corrected

himself, then looked across at me; his gaze wavered

slightly. "You don't need it right now, do you?"

I thought about it. One hundred and forty-three

million dollars. Even if they delivered it in fifties, the

apartment wasn't that big. "No, I guess not."

"Then we'll leave it where it is," he said. "But it's

your money. If you need it, you can have it."

One hundred and forty-three million dollars. What

would I do with it—what couldn't I do with it? I had

known my parents had left me a little money, but—

One hundred and forty-three million—/

I found I was having trouble swallowing.

"I thought it was in trust until I was twenty-five," I

said.

"No," he corrected. "It's for me to administer for you

until you're ready for it. You can have it any time you

want."

"I'm not so sure I want it," I said slowly. "No—I

mean, of course, I want it! It's just that—" How to ex-

plain? I had visions of myself trapped in a big mansion

surrounded by butlers and bodyguards whose sole duty

was to make sure that I dusted the stacks of bills every

morning. One hundred and forty-three million dollars.

Even in hundreds, it would fill several closets. "I'm

doing okay on five hundred a week," I said, "All that

more—"

"Five hundred a week?" Uncle Jim frowned. Then,

"Yes, I keep forgetting—There's been so much—Danny,

I'm going to increase your allowance to two thousand

dollars a week, but I want you to do something to earn

it."

"Sure," I said, delighted in spite of myself This was

a sum of money I could understand. (One hundred and

forty-three million—I wasn't sure there was that much

money in the world; but two thousand dollars, yes, I

could count to two thousand.) "What do I have to do?"

"Keep a diary."

"A diary?"

"That's right."

"You mean write things down in a black book every

day? Dear diary, today I kissed a girl and all that kind of

stuff?"

"Not exactly. I want you to record the things that

seem important to you. Type out a few pages every day,

that's all. You can record specific incidents or just make

general comments about anything worth recording. All I

want is your guarantee that you'll add something to it

every day—or let's say at least once a week. I know how

you get careless sometimes."

"And you want to read it—?" I started to ask.

"Oh, no, no, no—" he said hastily. "I just want to

know that you're keeping it up. You won't have to show it

to me. Or anyone. It's your diary. What you do with it or

make of it is up to you."

My mind was working—two thousand dollars a

week. "Can I use a dictation machine and a secretary?"

He shook his head. "It has to be a personal diary,

Danny. That's the whole purpose of it. If it has to pass

through someone else's hands, you might be inhibited. I

want you to be honest." He straightened up where he

sat, and for a moment he looked like the Uncle Jim I

remembered, tall and strong. "Don't play any games,

Danny. Be truthful in your diary. If you're not, you'll

only cheat yourself. And put down everything—every-

thing that seems important to you."

"Everything," I repeated dumbly.

He nodded. There was a lot of meaning in that nod.

"All right," I said. "But why?"

"Why?" He looked at me. "You'll find out when you

write it."

As usual, he was right.

* * *

I'm not fooled. Uncle Jim is trying to teach me

something. This isn't the first time he's thrown me into

the deep end of the pool.

* * *

Okay, this is it. At least this is today’s answer:

There's a point beyond which money is redundant.

This is not something I discovered just this week.

I've suspected it for a long time.

Five hundred dollars a week "spending money"

(—like what else are you going to do with it?—) gives a

person a considerable amount of freedom to do whatever

he wants. Within limits, of course—but those limits are

wide enough to be not very restricting. Increase them to

two thousand dollars a week and you don't feel them at

all. The difference isn't that much. Not really.

Okay, so I bought some new clothes and records and

a couple of other fancy toys I'd had my eye on, but I'd

already gotten used to having as much money as I'd

needed (or wanted), so having that much more in my

pocket didn't make that much more difference.

I just had to start wearing bigger pockets, that's all.

Well—

I like to travel too. Usually, about once or twice a

month I'd fly up to San Francisco for the weekend, or

something like that. Palm Springs, Santa Barbara, New-

port, San Diego. Follow the sun, that's me.

Since Uncle Jim increased my allowance, I've been

to Acapulco, New York, and the Grand Bahamas. And

I'm thinking about Europe. But it's not all that fun to

travel alone—and nobody I know can afford to come

along with me.

So I find I'm staying home just as much as before.

I could buy things if I wanted—but I've never cared

much about owning things. They need to be dusted. Be-

sides, I have what I need.

Hell, I have what I want—and that's a lot more than

what I need. I have everything I want now.

Big deal.

I think it's a bore.

* * *

So that's what Uncle Jim wanted to teach me.

Money isn't everything. In fact, it isn't anything. It's just

paper and metal that we trade for other things.

I knew that already; but it's one thing to know it

theoretically; it’s another thing to know it from experi-

ence.

Okay. So, if money isn't anything, what is?

* * *

I didn't exactly drop out of the university—I just

sort of faded away.

It was a bore.

I found I had less and less to say to my classmates. I

call them my classmates because I'm not sure they were

ever my friends. We weren't talking on the same levels.

Typical conversation: "—can I borrow five bucks, is

she a good lay, does anyone know where I can score a lid,

can you spare a quarter, did you hear what he said in

class, I couldn't get my car running, do you know anyone

who's had her, my ten o'clock class is a bitch, lend me a

buck willya, what're we gonna do this weekend—"

They couldn't sympathize with my problems either.

"Problems? With two thousand dollars a week,

who's got problems?"

Me.

I think.

I know something is wrong—I'm not happy. I wish I

knew why.

* * *

I wish the other shoe would drop. Okay, Uncle Jim.

I got it about the money. Where's the rest of the lesson?

* * *

I think I will tell this exactly as it happened and try

to do it without crying. If I can.

Uncle Jim is dead.

I got the phone call at eleven this morning. It was

one of the lawyers from his company, Biggs or Briggs or

something like that. He said, "Daniel Eakins?"

I said, "Yes?"

He said, "This is Jonathan Biggs-or-Briggs-or-some-

thing-like-that and I have some bad news for you about

your uncle."

"My—uncle—" I must have wavered. Everything

seemed made of ice.

The man was trying to be gentle. And not doing a

very good job of it. He said, "He was found this morning

by his maid—"

"He's . . . dead?"

I’m sorry. Yes.

Dead? Uncle Jim?

"How—? I mean—"

"He just didn't wake up. He was a very old man."

Old?

No. It couldn't be. I wouldn't accept it. Uncle Jim

was immortal.

"We thought that you, as next of kin, would like to

supervise the funeral arrangements—"

Funeral arrangements?

"—on the other hand, we realize your distress at a

time like this, so we've taken the liberty of—"

Dead? Uncle Jim?

The telephone was still making noises. I hung up.

* * *

The funeral was a horror. Some idiot had decided on

an open-casket ceremony, "so the deceased's family and

friends might see him one more time."

Family and friends. Meaning me. And the lawyers.

No one else.

I was surprised at that. And a little disappointed. I'd

thought Uncle Jim was well known and popular. But

there was nobody there—apparently I was the only one

who cared.

Uncle Jim looked like hell. They had rouged his

cheeks in a sickly effort to make him look like he was

only asleep. It didn't work; it didn't disguise the fact that

he was a shriveled and tired old hulk. I must have stared

in horror. If he had seemed shrunken the last time I had

seen him, today he looked absolutely emaciated. Used

up.

No. Uncle Jim wasn't in that casket. That was just a

piece of dead meat. Whatever it was that had made it

Uncle Jim, that was gone—this empty old husk was

nothing.

I bawled like a baby anyway.

The lawyers drove me home. I was moving like a

zombie.

Everything seemed so damnably the same—it had

all happened too fast, I hadn't had time to realize what it

might mean, and now here was some dark-suited

stranger sitting in my living room and trying to tell me

that things were going to be different.

Different—? Without Uncle Jim, how could they be

the same?

Biggs – or – Briggs – or – something – like - that shuffled

some papers and managed to look both embarrassed and

sorrowful.

I said, "I think I have some idea. I spoke with Uncle

Jim a few weeks ago."

"Ah, good," he said. "Then we can settle this a lot

easier." He hesitated. "Dan—Daniel, your uncle died

indigent." I must have looked puzzled. He added, "That

means poor."

"What?" I blurted. "Now, wait a minute—that's not

what he told me—"

"Eh? What did he tell you?"

I thought back. No, the lawyer was right. Uncle Jim

hadn't said a word about his own money. Carefully, I ex-

plained, "Uncle Jim said that I had a bit of money . . .

and he was supposed to administer it. So naturally, I as-

sumed that he had some of his own—or that he was tak-

ing a fee—"

Biggs-or-Briggs shook his head. "Your uncle was

taking a fee," he said, "but it was only a token. You

haven't got that much yourself."

"How much?" I asked.

"A little less than six thousand."

"Huh?"

"Actually, it's about five thousand nine hundred and

something. I don't remember the exact amount." He

shuffled papers in his briefcase.

I stared at him. "What happened to the hundred

and forty-three million?"

He blinked. "I beg your pardon—?"

I felt like a fool, but repeated, "A hundred and forty-

three million dollars. Uncle Jim said that I had a hundred

and forty-three million dollars. What happened to that?"

"A hundred and forty-three mill—" He pushed his

glasses back onto his nose. "Uh, Mr. Eakins, you have six

thousand dollars. That's all. I don't know where you got

the idea that you had anything like—"

I explained patiently, "My Uncle Jim sat there, right

where you're sitting now, and told me that I was worth

one hundred and forty-three million dollars and that I

could have it any time I wanted." I fixed him with what I

hoped was my fiercest look. "Now, where is it?"

It didn't faze him at all. Instead he put on his I'd-

better-humor-him expression. "Now, Daniel—Dan, I

think you can understand that when a person gets old,

his mind starts to get a little—well, funny. Your Uncle

Jim may have told you that you were rich—he may even

have believed it himself! but—"

"My Uncle Jim was not senile," I said. My voice was

cold. "He may have been sick, but when I saw him, his

mind was as clear as—as mine."

Biggs-or-Briggs looked like he wanted to reply to

that, but didn't. Probably he was reminding himself that

we'd just come from a funeral and I couldn't be expected

to be entirely rational. "Well," he said. "The fact remains

that all you have in the accounts that we're administering

is six thousand dollars. To tell the truth, we were a little

concerned with the way you've been spending these past

few weeks—but your explanation clears that up. There's

been a terrible misunderstanding—"

"Yes, there has. I want to see your books. When my

parents died, their money was put in trust for me. It

couldn't all be gone by now."

"Mr. Eakins—" he said. I could see that he was forc-

ing himself to be gentle. "I don't know anything about

your parents. It was your Uncle Jim who set up your

trust fund, nineteen and a half years ago. He hasn't

added to it since; that hasn't been necessary. His inten-

tion was to provide you with enough money to see you to

your twenty-first birthday." He cleared his throat apolo-

getically. "We almost made it. If he hadn't instructed us

to increase your allowance two months ago, we probably

could have made it stretch—"

I was feeling a little ill. This lawyer was making

too much sense. When I thought of the spending

I'd been doing—ouch! I didn't want to think about it.

Of course, I hadn't spent it all—I hadn't been try-

ing. I started going over in my mind how much I might

have left in cash and in my checking account. Not that

much, after all. Maybe a few hundred.

And six thousand left in trust. No hundred and

forty-three million—

But Uncle Jim had said—

I stopped and thought about it. If I'd really been

worth a hundred and forty-three million dollars, would I

have grown up the way I did? Brought up by a trained

governess in Uncle Jim's comfortable—but not very

big—San Fernando Valley home, sent to public schools

and the State University? Uh-uh. Not likely.

If I'd been worth that big a pile, I'd have been

fawned over, drooled over, and protected every day of my

life. I would have had nurses and private tutors and val-

ets and chauffeurs. I would have had butlers for my

butlers. I would have had my own pony, my own yacht,

my own set of full-size trains. I would have had my pick

of any college in the country. In the world. I would have

been spoiled rotten.

I looked around my three-hundred-dollar-a-month

apartment. There was no evidence here that I was

spoiled rotten.

Well . . . not to the tune of a hundred and forty-

three million dollars.

You can get spoiled on five hundred a week, but

that's a far cry from butlers for your butlers.

Ouch. And ouch again.

I'd thought I'd never have to worry about money in

my life. Now I was wondering if I would make it to the

end of the year.

"—of course," Biggs-or-Briggs was mumbling, "if

you still feel you want to check our books, by all means—

we don't want there to be any misunderstandings or

hard feelings—"

"Yeah . . ."I waved it off. "I'll call you. There's no

hurry. I believe you, I guess." Maybe Uncle Jim hadn't

been thinking straight that day. The more I thought

about it, the odder his behavior seemed.

Oh, Uncle Jim! How could you have become so ad-

dled? A hundred and forty-three million!

I wasn't sure whom I felt sorriest for, him or me.

The lawyer was still talking. "—Now, of course,

you're not responsible for any of his financial liabilities,

and they aren't that much anyway. The company will

probably cover them—"

"Wasn't there any insurance?" I blurted suddenly.

"Eh? No, I'm sorry. Your uncle didn't believe in it.

We tried to talk to him about it many times, but he never

paid any attention."

I shrugged and let him go on. That was just like my

Uncle Jim. Even he believed he was immortal.

"You're entitled to his personal effects and—"

"No, I don't want them."

"—there is one item he specifically requested you to

have."

"What?"

"It's a package. Nobody's to open it but you."

"Well, where is it?"

"It's in the trunk of my car. If you'll just sign this

receipt—"

* * *

I waited until after what's-his-name had left. What-

ever it was in the box, Uncle Jim had intended it for me

alone. I hefted it carefully. Perhaps this was the hundred

and forty-three million—

I wondered—could you put that much money into a

box this small?

Maybe it was in million-dollar bills, one hundred

and forty-three of them. (I don't know—do they even

print million-dollar bills?)

No, that couldn't be. Could you imagine trying to

cash one? I shuddered. Uh-uh, Uncle Jim wouldn't do

that to me. . . . Well, let's see, maybe it was in ten-thou-

sand-dollar bills. (That would be fourteen thousand,

three hundred of them.) No, the box was too light—

If it was my fortune, it would have to be in some

other form than banknotes. Rare postage stamps? Pre-

cious gems? Maybe—but I couldn't imagine a hundred

and forty-three million dollars' worth of them, at least not

in this box. It was too small.

There was only one way to find out. Tripped away

the heavy brown wrapping paper and fumbled off the

top.

It was a belt.

A black leather belt. With a stainless-steel plate for

a buckle.

A belt.

I almost didn't feel like taking it out of the box. I felt

like a kid at Santa Claus's funeral.

This was Uncle Jim's legacy?

I took it out. It wasn't a bad-looking belt—in fact, it

was quite handsome. I wondered what I could wear it

with—almost anything actually; it was just a simple

black belt. It had a peculiar feel to it though; the leather

flexed like an eel, as if it were alive and had an electric

backbone running through it. The buckle too; it seemed

heavier than it looked, and—well, have you ever tried to

move the axis of a gyroscope? The torque resists your

pressure. The belt buckle felt like that.

I looped it around my waist to see what it would

look like. Not bad, but I had belts I liked better. I started

to put it back in the box when it popped open in my

hand. The buckle did.

I looked at the buckle more closely. What had

looked like a single plate of stainless steel was actually

two pieces hinged together at the bottom, so that when

you were wearing the belt you could open it up and read

the display on the inside of the front. It was a luminous

panel covered with numbers.

Great. Just what I needed. A digital belt buckle.

Clock, calculator, and musical synthesizer all in one. And

wasn't that just like Uncle Jim. He loved these kinds of

toys.

But the only thing that looked like a trademark said

TIMEBELT. Everything else was display. Two of the

rows of numbers kept flickering, changing to keep track

of the tenths of seconds, the seconds, and the minutes.

Also indicated were the hours, the day, the month, the

year—

Not bad, but I already had a watch and that was

good enough. Besides, this seemed such a silly idea,

putting a clock in a belt buckle. You'd feel embarrassed

every time you opened it.

Fine. I had the worlds only belt buckle that told the

time. I started to close it up again—

Wait a minute—not so fast. There were too many

numbers on that dial.

There were four rows of numbers, and a row of

lights and some lettering. The whole thing looked like

this:

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摘要：

ThisbookisforLarryNiven,agoodfriendwhobelievesthattimetravelisimpossible.He'sprobablyright.OhwadsomepowerthegiftiegieusToseeourselsasothersseeus!Itwasfraemonieablunderfreeus,Anfoolishnotion.—RobertBurnsToaLouse,stanza8***Intheboxwasabelt.Andamanuscript.***Ihadn'tseenUncleJiminmonths.Helookedterrible...

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