For a few moments Gina was astounded, even though she should have had a good idea by now of what to expect. She stood up, staring hard and consciously going through all the impressions being reported by her senses. She could feel a pebble under her shoe, and a branch from a bush beside her brushing her arm as she moved. It was uncanny. The sensation of being there was indistinguishable in any way that she could find from the real thing. Her clothes felt unusually heavy and enveloping. She looked down and saw that she was wearing a shawl and an ankle-length skirt of the period.
She was curious again. “Is there any reason why I shouldn’t look around?” she asked.
“Go ahead.”
She followed the stream down to a path that joined the cart track. It led to the outskirts of the village. There was a small marketplace with stalls and crude, wooden-shuttered shops displaying meat, vegetables, dairy produce, all plentiful and fresh, fabrics and linen, pottery and pans. And there was a cast of players to complete the scene, correct in character and role: farmers, merchants, tradesmen, housewives; gentry on horseback, a miller with a cartload of sacks, a jolly-faced innkeeper, two Highlanders in kilts, and children, rosy cheeked and well fed, playing around doorways.
All of it crushingly bland, empty, and uninteresting. It came across as a not very imaginative stage set, populated by moving pieces of scenery added to finish the effect. Which, indeed, was what the inhabitants were.
Gina stopped by a gray-haired old man sitting on a doorstep, smoking a pipe. Alongside him was a sleepy-looking, black-and-white collie. “Hello,” she said.
“Aye.”
“It’s a fine day.”
“‘Tis an’ all.”
“This looks like a nice place.”
“It’s no’ sa bad.”
“I’m not from around here.”
“I can see that.”
Gina stared at him. His gray eyes twinkled back at her with good-humored, imbecilic indifference as he continued puffing his pipe. Her frustration turned to exasperation. “I’m from three hundred years in the future,” she said.
“We dinna get vera many o’ those around here.”
“VISAR, this isn’t going to work,” Gina flared. “These are just dummies. Don’t they know anything? Don’t they have anything to say?”
“What do you want them to say?”
“Use your imagination.”
“It’s your imagination that matters.”
“Well, can’t you figure it out from whatever you see in my head?” Gina demanded.
“I’m not permitted to,” VISAR reminded her.
“Okay, then, I’m permitting you. Go by whatever you find. Don’t take any notice of the things we humans fabricate to fool ourselves.”
This time the transition was not quite instantaneous.
There was music, muted to a background level. Gina found herself clad in a plain but gracious, classically styled gown. It felt deliciously light and sheer. She was standing among others in a reception room of a large house. It was a solid, mature house, dignified but not pretentious, with high, paneled rooms, lofty gables, and intricately molded ceilings, and it stood by the sea. Across the hall was her library, and off the landing at the top of the curving stairway, the office where she worked, with its picture window framing a rocky shoreline. How she knew these things, she wasn’t sure. But she smiled inwardly and gave VISAR full marks. Yes, it was a kind of life that she had sometimes conjured up in her daydreams.
The room that she and her guests were in had tall windows with heavy drapes, a fine marble fireplace, and furnishings in character. Above the fireplace was a crest, showing arms: unicorn and lion rampant, and a fleur-de-lis surmounted by… a shamrock. The music, she realized, was Celtic harp and flute. But from the dress of those present, and as she knew, somehow, anyway, the times were modern.
The words from one member of a group of people talking nearby caught her ear. “Ah, yes, but it would have been a different thing if this country hadn’t overcome its internal squabbles and resisted the English.” The speaker, a roundly built man with thinning hair and a pugnacious bulldog jaw, stood holding a cigar in one hand and a brandy glass in the other. He spoke with an English accent; his voice had a rasping tone and a hint of a lisp. “Ireland might even have gone solidly over to Rome when Henry VIII went the other way.”
“Oh, impossible!” one of the listeners exclaimed.
“Seriously. Purely out of defiance. Then who knows what we might have seen today? The Reversion might never have happened, and England could conceivably have dominated the Irish Isles. Then, America might have been started by some kind of Protestant, Puritan, monogamy cult. Then where would all of the freedoms be that we take for granted today?”
Gina stared in sudden astonishment as she recognized the speaker. It was Winston Churchill, one of her favorite historical figures.
The glowering, stormy-faced man with thick side-whiskers, sitting talking with two women on a sofa facing the fire, was Ludwig van Beethoven.
Shaken, Gina moved her head to take in others. “Nein. Zat is not really true, vat zey say. Only two ideas do I haff in my life, unt vun off zem vass wrong.” Albert Einstein was talking to Mark Twain.
“Don’t misunderstand me. I abhor war as much as anyone-more than most, I suspect. But the reality is that evil people exist, who can be restrained only by the certainty of retaliation…” Edward Teller, nuclear physicist.
“Let’s face it. Most decisions that matter are made by people who don’t know what they’re talking about.” Ayn Rand, to someone who looked like Mencken.
Another voice spoke close behind her. “Splendid to see you again, Gina. Doubtless dinner will be up to the usual standard.” She turned, now feeling bewildered. It was Benjamin Franklin, easily identified even in his dark, contemporary suit and tie. He leaned closer to whisper. “Tell the secret. What are you surprising us with this time?”
“Er, venison.” Gina found that she had a complete set of pseudomemories: deciding the menu; consulting with the caterers; planning the seating. The picture of the dining room was clear in her mind.
“Wonderful. One of my favorites. And my congratulations on the new book. It’s bound to raise a few hackles, but somebody needed to say it. Nothing could be more obvious than that individuals are not equal. They differ in size, shape, speed, strength, intelligence, aptitude, and in the disposition to better themselves. Of course, the opportunities to all should be the same. But to demand equality of results as a right is absurd. Since it is impossible for anything to grow beyond its inherent potential, the only way of achieving it would be to cut all trees down to the size of the shortest.”
Amazingly, Gina knew exactly what he was talking about. “I’m glad you agree,” she said, forcing a thin smile.
Franklin leaned forward again and covered his mouth with a hand. “Ayn is livid that she didn’t write it. You ought to try and find some way to console her.”
“I’ll bear it in mind,” Gina promised, puffing herself together at last and managing a conspiratorial smile.
“Good… And how are your husbands? Well, I trust?”
Husbands?
Gina’s smile froze as a new tapestry of recollections unfurled itself. “The last time I saw-” She balked. The image in her mind of the man she had driven to the airport had Vic Hunt’s face.
“Yes, which one? The Englishman?” Franklin inquired genially.
“VISAR, what does this mean?”
“You tell me.”
Heads turned toward the door. Gina followed their gaze. A lithe, athletic figure, resplendent in tuxedo and evening dress, had appeared and was beaming at the company with arms extended wide. He had piercing blue eyes, a droopy mustache, and hair that fell in yellow waves to his shoulders. “We thank all of you for coming. Dinner will be just a few minutes. Meanwhile, enjoy yourselves. Feel that this home is all your homes.” Appreciative murmurs came from around.