He laughed. “Doctor? Call me Isaac! I’m nowhere near to a Ph.D. yet.”
I felt sheepish; I had just addressed him as I always had, whenever I had met him in his later life.
“Sorry, Isaac,” I said, which felt strange. “Tell me, um, have you read this issue yet?”
“Have I!” He turned the issue around so the cover was right side up for him. “I finished this one a few days ago.” His fingers traced the banner at the top of the cover which proudly boasted “THE LEGION OF TIME by Jack Williamson.” His eyes were filled with enthusiasm. “I’ve been enjoying the Williamson serial. How do you suppose he’s going to end it?”
“Um,” I said. I had never read it. “I’m really not sure.”
“Well, I think…” Asimov began, and he launched into a detailed plot, based on his own extrapolation of what he felt would come next.
When he finished, I said, “You know, that sounds pretty good. Have you ever thought of writing the stuff yourself?” He looked away for a moment, then said, “Actually, I have.”
I knew that, of course. “Really?”
He hesitated. “Yes. I just finished a story yesterday. My first.”
“What’s the title?” I asked.
“ ‘Cosmic Corkscrew.’ ”
This was the pivotal moment. “May I see it?”
He got a wary look on his fece. “What do you teach?”
“Physics,” I said.
His look changed to one of relief. “As long as it’s not writing.”
Isaac reached under the counter, and pulled out a sheaf of papers. With a slight tremble in his hand, he handed the manuscript over to me. I flipped through it eagerly. Years later, in his autobiography, Isaac himself had admitted that the story must have been utterly impossible.
And yet, as far as I and many others were concerned, it was the most valuable thing in the world.
“It’s a time travel story,” Isaac said as I flipped through it. “You see, I call it ‘Cosmic Corkscrew’ because—”
“—time is a helix,” I murmured to myself, but a little too loudly.
“Oh, you saw that part already? I decided to use the neutrino as the explanation for time travel, since they haven’t been discovered yet, only theorized.”
I nodded my head, remembering comments he had made about this story in his autobiography. And then I made a blunder, but I couldn’t help myself. “You know, you got it wrong,” I said.
“What?”
“That isn’t how time travel really works,” I said, and then I clamped my mouth shut.
“What are you talking about?”
In for a penny, in for a pound, as they say. I had already started to tell him the truth; I might as well finish it. “Isaac, if there’s anyone in 1938 who can believe my story, you can.”
“What story?”
“I’m a time traveler. I’ve come back from the future for this.” I lifted the manuscript.
Isaac looked around for a moment, then looked back at me. “This is a joke, right? Someone put you up to this?”
I sighed, and put the manuscript on the counter. “It’s not a joke. You’ve been thinking about how to deliver this story to Astounding, and you’re planning to talk with your father about it.”
“How—”
“Tomorrow you’re going to take the subway to the offices of Astounding, and meet with John W. Campbell, Jr. for the first time. He’s going to take your manuscript, read it, and reject it. But you’ll begin a working relationship with him that will change the face of science fiction.”
“What are you—”
I didn’t want to stop now. “ ‘Cosmic Corkscrew’ will disappear, Isaac. You’ll let it get lost, and you’ll bemoan the fact in a collection of your early works. You’ll write about how many fans of yours regret its loss, and how you do too. You’ll point out that there was no way you could have known how much people might have wanted to read the story in the future.
“But I’m from the future, and we know, Isaac. We want the story.”
I gave him a moment to assimilate everything I had said. Then he shook his head. “I don’t believe this.”
“It’s true. How could I know so much about your story, or what you’re planning to do with it?”
“It’s no secret that I read science fiction, or that I might want to write it. You could have guessed some of what you said, and made up the rest. I’m a scientist. You’ll have to offer better proof if you want me to believe your story.” “Fair enough.” I pulled back my left sleeve and showed him my wrist chronometer.
He studied the digital display intently, and lightly touched the molded metal and plastic of the device. I knew what he was thinking: could this device be a product of 1938 technology?
And the answer had to be no.
Finally, he looked up at me, his face slightly pale. “My word,” he said. “You’re telling the truth. You really are from the future.”
I nodded. “Yes, I am.”
“And I—I become a famous writer?” “Yes, you do.”
“And you’ve come back for—for me?” I shook my head. “Not for you. For your manuscript.” I pointed to where it lay on the counter “The future wants it.”
He shook his head. “I don’t believe it. I mean, I do, but I don’t.”
I nodded. “I understand. But it is true. I’m here, and I need your manuscript.” I pointed at it again.
He picked it up quickly. “I can’t let you have it. It’s my only copy.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. I’m not going to take that particular copy. I’ve come prepared.” From under my coat I pulled out my scanner, a thin rod just about nine inches long.
“What is that?”
“It’s—” I paused. They didn’t have photocopy machines in 1938, did they? Or xerography? “It’s likecarbon paper. Watch.”
As I ran the scanner over each sheet of manuscript, it spit out an identical copy. I suppose I didn’t have to bother with the hard copy, as the scanner stored a copy of anything it scanned in its memory, but I wanted to feel the manuscript in my own hands as I brought it to the future. When I was done, I had a pile of papers that matched Isaac’s manuscript almost perfectly.
He whisded. “A device like that could change the world.”
“It will. And it’s because of people like you that such devices will be made.”
I couldn’t help myself. I really couldn’t. I told Isaac all about how he would go to meet John W. Campbell, the editor of Astounding, at the offices of Street & Smith tomorrow. I told him how his friendship with Campbell would lead to a career as a full-time writer. I told him that his first published story, “Marooned Off Vesta,” would appear in Amazing next March, and that his first sale to Campbell, a story he would call “Ad Astra” but which Campbell would change to “Trends,” would appear in the July 1939 Astounding.
We talked, of space, and galaxies, and tesseracts, and time travel, and rockets to the Moon, and of all the dreams that were yet to be. I wanted to stay forever, but every millisecond I stayed increased the possibility of disrupting the timeline. Isaac noticed me glancing at my chronometer every so often, and after a while he got the idea.
“You need to leave, don’t you?”
I nodded. “This is it, Isaac. I have to go now.”
Isaac smiled at me. Then he got a worried look on his face. “What happens now? Do you erase my memory?”
“No,” I lied. “Just—do me a favor. When you write your autobiography—” “I’ll leave you out of it, I promise.” “Good.”
But he got a twinkle in his eye. “Although—you know, that gives me an idea for a story. What if I put something in print here in the past that can only be recognized in the future?”
I thought for moment. “It does sound like a good idea for a story, but don’t start it until late 1953.”