Year's Best SF 23 by Gardner Dozois

Author:Gardner Dozois
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-04-13T00:13:32+00:00

“Yeah, we know.”

“Okay, so you recruit these boys. Then what?”

“We move them up a bit. Not too much. Not as far as we’ve brought you. We don’t want to induce temporal displacement trauma. We relocate them to a situation where they have access to a lot more possibility. By the way, do you want to meet Jeremy Weiss? He has the apartment across from here.

He’s just turned fifty-seven; he and Steve are celebrating their twenty-second anniversary this week.

They were married in Boston, May of 2004, the first week it was legal. Weiss worked on — never mind, I can’t tell you that. But it was big.” Eakins wiped his mouth with his napkin. “So? Is that it? Is that the case?”

“No. There’s more.”

“I’m listening.”

“All of this—you’re not taking me out of the game. You said I was on probation. Well, this is a test. This is my final exam, isn’t it?”

Eakins raised an eyebrow. “Interesting thesis. Why do you think this is a test?”

“Because if you wanted to get me off the case, if all you wanted to do was keep me from interfering with the disappearances, all you had to do was bump me up to 1975 and leave me there.”

“You could have quake-hopped back.”

“Maybe. But not easily. Not without a good map. All right, bump me up to 1980 or ‘85. But by your own calculations, you use up a year of subjective time for every three years of down-hopping. Twenty years away takes me out of the tank, but it doesn’t incapacitate me. But bringing me this far forward—you made the point last night. I’m so far out of my time that I’m a cultural invalid, requiring round-the-clock care. You didn’t do that as a mistake, you did it on purpose. Therefore, what’s the purpose? The way I see it, it’s about me—there’s no other benefit for you —so this has to be a test.”

Eakins nodded, mildly impressed. “See, that’s your skill. You can ask the next question. That’s why you’re a good operative.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Let’s say you haven’t finished the test.”

“There’s more?”

“Oh, there’s a lot more. We’re just warming up.”

“All right. Look. I’m no good to you here. We both know that. But I can go back and be a lot more useful.”

“Useful doing what?”

“Doing whatever—whatever it is that needs doing.”

“And what is it you think we need doing?”

“Errands. You know the kind I mean. The kind you hired me for. The jobs that we don’t talk about.”

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