Time Travelers Never Die - Jack McDevitt [79]
“It goes deeper than that, Dave. Truth is, I don’t know how many places he visited. But what strikes me is, we’re getting a kind of godlike view of the world.”
Dave nodded.
“We stood out there today, listening to Kennedy, and we know what’s coming. We know the Cold War will end, that everything will turn out okay in Europe. And we know that in five months, Kennedy will be dead.”
“Yeah.”
“The whole time we were listening to him, that was what kept running through my head. That he was going to be taken out by that nutcase in Dallas, and nobody would ever even know why.”
“I know. I thought about that, too.”
“When we were watching Lincoln, it was the same thing. And King. I don’t like knowing what’s coming.”
Dave unclipped the converter and sat down.
Shel’s eyes lost their focus. “I hate that part of this.”
“I saw a movie once.”
“Yeah?”
“It was called TimeQuest. A time traveler goes back and does what you’re talking about: He warns JFK.”
“How does it turn out?”
“A lot better. We stay out of Vietnam. We get Moonbase. King survives and becomes the first black president. Kennedy dies peacefully fifty years later in his bed at Hyannisport.”
“I wish we could arrange something like that.”
“So do I. But we’re talking about the ultimate hubris now. I suggest we keep our hands off.”
DAVE’S classes at Penn had become impossible. Getting through the days talking about Greek pronouns and Latin verbs was overwhelming him. He wanted to tell his classes that he’d been to the Library at Alexandria. And to Selma. Tell them he was planning to go to classical Athens that weekend to see Prometheus Bound.
He ached to go down to the next English Department meeting and describe his conversations with Lamb and Coleridge. That maybe, if he was in the mood, he’d wander over to Oxford this evening and have tea with A. E. Housman.
“Life has become better than I’d ever dreamed possible,” he told Shel one evening at the Wan Ho Chinese Restaurant. “The only downside is that we haven’t been able to find your father. And that we can’t tell anybody about what we’re doing.”
“I know, Dave.”
“We should write a book.”
“I’ve been doing something like that.”
“What?”
“I’ve been keeping a journal. Everything’s in there, pictures, recordings, my reactions. Everything.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“Probably nothing. It’s for me.” And, after a moment: “It seemed as if there should be some kind of record.”
THEY went back to the Library, took Aristarchus to lunch, and recorded some more plays, mostly Sophocles and Euripides, and a substantial section of the Periclean journal. Aristarchus asked whether they’d found Michael. “It’s hard to believe,” he said, “that men with such godlike capabilities can’t locate him.”
They sent the Periclean material, and two more plays, Troilus and The Hawks, to Aspasia. She reacted by posting a message at her Web site, pleading with them to contact her.
That night Shel and Dave met in a restaurant in King of Prussia. Both were eating cheesesteaks when Shel said, quietly, “There’s one more possibility we haven’t tried.”
“What’s that?”
“Thomas Paine. My father has his collected works at home. Always thought he was really the guy who drove the Revolution.”
He’d caught Dave in the perfect mood. “Tom Paine? Yes. Of all those guys at the beginning, he’s the one I’d most like to meet.”
“We could go down to Emilio’s Saturday. Get some clothes.”
PAINE had spent much of his time on the road, traveling with the army, and had been a frequent visitor at their camps. “We have a couple of dates when he was present at Valley Forge,” said Shel. “That would be the right setting. The place to find him.”
Dave frowned. “Bring a good jacket.”
“Not a problem.”
“Also not a good idea.”
“You think they’d take us for British spies?”
“I think they’d take us for guys who don’t belong in the camp. We’d be questioned and probably jailed. If we were lucky.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Arrange the encounter to happen after the war.”
“That takes all