Time Travelers Never Die - Jack McDevitt [57]
He shut off the TV and picked up one of the books he’d brought along. It was Michael Corbett’s Winter of Discontent, which had urged the introduction of lie detectors to presidential debates and IQ tests for candidates. There was no attempt to set a minimum standard, but Corbett’s plan would require that results be placed on the record. Candidates, of course, could decline, but only at their peril. However, no one really knew what the effect might be. Recent studies had shown that a majority of voters would be put off by a candidate with a high IQ.
Winter of Discontent was essentially a manual on how to make government more responsive. And more rational. He liked some of the suggestions, but they all required an electorate that paid attention. Maybe the problem, he thought, was the way history was taught. The classes he’d attended in high school and college had consisted mostly of committing factual information to memory. Dates of battles, names of politicians and generals, and descriptions of events that changed society, like the Reformation and the Napoleonic Wars.
Why not give students a hypothetical time-travel device? ‘You can go back and talk to one person in an effort to change an outcome. Say, to head off the Civil War. Who do you talk to? And what short-range outcome are you looking for?’
He read for a while, but it took an effort with one eye swollen half-shut. Eventually, he gave up and drifted off to sleep.
IN the middle of the week, Shel called again. “How are you doing?”
“Okay.”
“Good. In a few more days, you’ll be fine.”
“How’s my replacement?”
“He seems to be enjoying himself. I think he might want the job permanently.”
“I doubt it.”
“Helen and I are going to dinner with him tonight.”
Dave laughed. “Who’s with him? Anybody I know?”
“Katie.”
“The guy has good taste.”
“I always thought so. By the way, I’ve been reading the Selma book Dad had. The one by John Lewis.”
“And what have you concluded?”
“I’m beginning to realize how sheltered I’ve been.”
HE started feeling sorry for himself, cooped up in the cabin. It was almost Christmas, and he didn’t even have a light to hang on the door. So, as the aches in his ribs and legs diminished, and the swelling around his eye receded, he decided it was time to get out. On Saturday the twenty-second, he drove down to Clifton, the closest town of any size, bought a cell phone to replace the one he’d lost, and treated himself to a turkey dinner at a family-owned restaurant. Then he selected a ringtone. He’d had a few chords from Chopin’s Prelude in E Minor on the old one. That used to get people staring. Maybe it was time for something a bit less majestic. He decided, eventually, on a simple bell chime.
When he’d finished, he went to a movie, the latest installment of the Batman films. Then he wandered into Mac’s Bar, which had loud music and a lot of women.
He danced away the night and drank too much. Not a good idea when he had to negotiate a mountain road going home. He spent much of his time in Mac’s with a young woman whose name was Marie Dupré, and he wondered whether he could persuade her to drive him back to the cabin.
She smiled politely when he issued the invitation. “I think you made a mistake, Dave,” she said. “I don’t do that.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Good.”
“Sorry.”
It was just as well. He didn’t need any complications. But the alcohol, and maybe Marie, had made him nostalgic. While talking with her, he’d been thinking about Erin.
Still, he wasn’t sure how he was going to get home. Dave wasn’t much of a drinker to start with. And he couldn’t very well sit in Mac’s Bar and slug down Cokes. He wondered whether the town had a taxi.
But if he did that,