Cosmic Corkscrew
by Michael A. Burstein
Stasis felt unreal.
Dr. Scheihagen had warned me about that when I volunteered for this mission. “Remember, we don’t know what it’ll be like for you inside,” he said in his German accent. “We’ve never sent a human so far back before.”
Scheihagen himself had been the volunteer for the first few experiments, but he had only gone back in time on the scale of hours, not years. So he was little equipped to prepare me for my experience.
Even now, I can’t describe it. How does one describe the passage of imaginary time in a box of Stasis, of timelessness? I felt frozen in time, while events passed around me in a blur of color. Throughout, I worried that I might get trapped in Stasis, and never emerge into normal time again. But I had been willing to take the risk for this literary mission of the utmost importance.
Finally, after an eternity of nothing, the Chronobox and I materialized in a small, isolated alleyway. I jumped out of the Chronobox, gulped down a few breaths of air, and closed the door. The sunlight passed through the glass cubicle, rendering it almost invisible. Only once I felt safely back in normal time did I check my wrist chronometer.
Its digital display of the date read 06:20:38. Monday, June 20, 1938. Afternoon.
Perfect. I had managed to reprogram the Chronobox right under Scheihagen’s nose.
Scheihagen had warned me about it when he set up the controls.
“Remember our agreement,” he had said to me. “I’m sending you back on June 23, when the story has already been rejected, so there’s no chance of interference with the main event. You make one copy of the story, then get back into the Chronobox and come home. Do not interact with anyone, most of all, with him. Ist das klar?”
I nodded my agreement, not bothering to point out to Scheihagen that one of our subject’s own short stories showed a timeline changing over just such a mission, even after the original work in question had been rejected. After all, the last thing I wanted to do was give Scheihagen a reason to suspect me.
Then, while his back was turned and he fiddled with the last few controls, I used the wrist chronometer—which was much more than a simple watch—to reprogram the date of arrival. I had to time this perfectly, making the change before Scheihagen sent me back, but not early enough in the launch sequence for him to notice.
Why did I do this? Because, despite Scheihagen’s warnings, I wanted to make contact with the subject. When he was alive, whenever I had met him, I had always been a fen; by the time I had made a name for myself in his field, he was long gone. I wanted to meet him right at the start of his career, and as far as I was concerned, that beginning was right after he finished writing his first story.
1 looked back at the Chronobox, then checked my clothing and patted my pockets. I was dressed in a jacket, tie, and overcoat, perfect to blend in with the natives of this era. In my pockets I had my scanner and my disorienter. The scanner was vital to my mission; the disorienter was for repairing the past in case I made a mistake. Feeling confident, I turned around the corner and walked to my destination: the candy store at 174 Windsor Place in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn.
I had memorized the route in the future, and here in the past I found my way quite easily. The candy store stood in the middle of the block. A newspaper rack sat outside, with the day’s papers and more popular magazines of the era prominently displayed. I pushed the door open and went in.
The details of this store were important to me, and I wanted to take in everything I saw as perfectly as possible, so I could remember it once I had left. The first thing 1 noticed was that the store was broader than it was deep. To the left, near the wall, I saw a cigar counter and a cash register. Behind the register were vertical slots against the walls, crammed with cigarette packets. At right angles to the cigar counter was a candy counter, with three rows of penny candies (penny!) and one row of nickel candies. The sweet smell of the cigars wafted through the store, permeating it with a pleasant, musty odor.
On the right side of the store was a soda fountain, and right along with it a refrigerator, containers of syrup, electric stirrers, faucets for carbonated water, and a sink. Four stools sat below it, currently empty. I was the only customer in the store.
On the right wall was a magazine stand. Next to it, a rotary telephone, and a table with four chairs. And then, coming around to the right side of the door, an ice container.
And back behind the cigarette counter stood a young man, only 18 years old, wearing glasses and showing an impossible grin. He looked at me, and with an unmistakable Brooklyn accent, said, “May I help you?”
I was in the right place, the right time. Standing behind the counter was the young Isaac Asimov.
I told him I was just looking, which seemed to strike him as odd; I guess most people in this era came into a candy store intent on one or two particular items. But he seemed to relax when I headed to the magazine stand and began studying the titles.
I had to take a few deep breaths just to calm myself down. Part of me was worried that at any moment, Scheihagen might appear to drag me back to the future, or perhaps the universe might collapse around me for having already violated his protocols by slightly altering the timeline with my brief contact. But most of me was feeling simple awe at being in the presence of one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.
I considered my next move. I really wanted a chance to talk more with the young Asimov, and it seemed to me that I no longer had to worry about disrupting the timeline. After all, I had already made contact, and I was still here. I convinced myself that it meant that my actions were harmless.
But that still left one question: how could I get him to talk to me? What could I do to get him to want to strike up a conversation with just another anonymous customer?
And then my eyes, wandering over the titles of the magazines, fell upon the current issue—that is, June 1938—of Astounding Science-Fiction. It was perfect; the obvious way to hit it off with the young Isaac Asimov. I studied it for a moment as I gathered my resolve. The cover illustration was a painting of Mars as if seen from Deimos. Quite good, given the fact that no one in 1938 had set foot on the Moon, much less on Mars. Of course, even in my time, the three human figures standing on the Martian moon’s surface and their silver cigarshaped spacecraft were still the province of science fiction, not of science feet.
I grabbed a copy and brought it over to the counter. Asimov had been staring into space; now he came out of his reverie and prepared to take money from me.
He looked down at the magazine, then gave me a quizzical glance. “Pardon my asking,” he said, “but you read science fiction?”
I nodded; I felt a lump in my throat and it took me a moment to find my voice. My ploy had worked. “Yes. Why?” He looked around for a moment; we were still the only two in the store. “I do too. And I haven’t met too many other readers of science fiction.”
I thought for a moment; at this point in his life, Asimov was writing letters to the magazines, but he hadn’t yet hooked up with the Futurians.
“Well,” I replied with a smile, “I’ve been reading Analog—” oops “—I mean Astounding—for a while now.”
“Really? What’s your name? What do you do?”
“Um—” I didn’t want to give him my real name. “Schwartz,” I said after a moment of thought. “Joseph Schwartz. I’m a—a teacher.”
“I’m Isaac Asimov. My family owns this store, but I’m a chemist.” We shook hands.
“Dr. Asimov—” I began.