Rube shrugged. “A friend, a young army friend; they’re more or less on loan.”
“And what’ve they got to do with Si Morley?”
“Isn’t that obvious?”
“No.”
Rube nodded at the objects on the table. “He’s doing this. He and maybe McNaughton—one more guy who broke his word and didn’t come back! They’re back there in the past, trampling around, changing things, aren’t they? They don’t know it. They’re just living their happy lives, but changing small events. Mostly trivial, with no important effects. But every once in a while the effect of some small changed event moves on down to the—” He stood, frowning: Dr. Danziger was shaking his head, smiling. “Why not!? What the hell, I’m quoting you!”
“Misquoting. It takes more than a trivial event. It isn’t Si. Or McNaughton. Look at these things.”
“I have. Most of last night. Looked till—”
“Well, look again. You shouldn’t need this spelled out by a senile old man.”
“You? That’ll be the day.” Rube Prien picked up the white campaign button and looked at the printed faces of John Kennedy and Estes Kefauver; looked at the front page of the old newspaper. Touched the tape cassette, the old film, the packet of letters, his expression growing irritable. Then he sat back, hooking an arm over the back of his chair. “Dr. D. You know I was never in your league. Just tell me.”
“Not one of these artifacts predates the early years of the century. That didn’t occur to you? If Si, back in the 1880s, were causing this”—he gestured at the scattered things on the table—“some, at least, should have occurred much earlier. And if McNaughton, then none could predate the twenties.” His face and voice had grown interested. “Something happened, sometime around 1912, it appears. Some kind of . . . what? Some very important event, a kind of Big Bang, to steal a term. Something that altered the course of many subsequent events; these and undoubtedly others.”
“What kind of Big Bang?”
“Who can say? You’ve read Si Morley’s published account, his book?”
“Twice. Making notes. And cursing him out at least once a page.”
“Yet an accurate account, wouldn’t you say?”
“Oh, I don’t know. What about that last chapter?”
Danziger laughed. “Oh, you’re right, you’re right! Not quite accurate there, thank the Lord. Keep my parents from ever meeting! Thus effectively preventing the Project itself. I enjoyed that. But everything else was accurate, including your own grandiose ideas. So why do you suppose he wrote that final chap—”
“Wishful thinking. The way he’d have liked it to happen.”
“I don’t know: if he’d really wanted to do that, what could possibly have stopped him?”
Rube shook his head. “I have no way of knowing.” They sat silent, reflecting; then Rube said, “Okay. But who did cause your Big Bang?”
“Anyone who read Si’s account of how he succeeded. And who then tried it himself. Or herself, as we are obliged to add now. Tried and, unlike you and me . . . succeeded.”
“Oh, come on! Are you serious? Just from reading his account?”
“Oh, I know the difficulties. And how few ever managed even with the facilities we once had here: the School, the researchers, the Big Floor mockups. Virtually re-creating the whole town for McNaughton. And yet just possibly, some reader, absolute amateur, was actually able—” He couldn’t finish, breaking into laughter. “Of course I’m not serious! I’m teasing you, Rube!” Still amused, he turned to gather up his coat and hat. “Well, it’s been fascinating.” He pushed back his chair to stand. “But now—so long, Rube. Thanks for everything, as we say.”
“I can’t believe you’re walking out on this. You, the fanatic about any least change in the past.” He swept his hand over the scattered objects on the table. “What about these changes!”
“You’ve never really understood, have you? Yes, these things seem to indicate a past that has been changed. Thus altering our present. And if I could have prevented it, no doubt I would have.” He set the palms of his hands flat on the table edge to lean forward, stiff-armed, toward Rube. “But now that altered order of events is our present. Would you change it again? Send Si Morley back if you could to . . . do something, you don’t even know what, and produce some new order of events? Whose consequences you can’t possibly foresee?”
Rube picked up the campaign button, saying, “What about this?” and tossed it to slide across the tabletop and stop faceup before Danziger.
Danziger glanced down at the two pictured faces, and took his hands from the table. “Yes. I liked that young man. It was a pleasure having a President who could speak his own language. Fluently and properly. Often with grace and wit. When he stood speaking somewhere representing the United States, it was possible to feel proud. We haven’t had many like that since Franklin Roosevelt. Yet in a fairly short time this charming young man took us closer to nuclear war than we’ve ever been before or since. And did it on defective information. Took us into the most foolish, badly planned venture, in Cuba, that I can easily conceive of. So what next, Rube? If he’d lived out his first term and had a second? Would he have improved? Maybe. He might have grown into that enormous job. And the present we’d be living in now would have been something glorious. Or catastrophic. You can’t say, you see, you can’t say! But you want to gamble? Reach into the grab bag and find out?” He gestured at the photograph, the letters, the old newspaper, all the things on the table between them. “I’d love to know the cause of these: what event, what Big Bang, back in the early years of this century brought these changes about. And others undiscovered, no doubt. I’d love to know, but never will. And I won’t help you to know. You’re a lovely man, Rube, as the Irish are supposed to say. But a troublemaker, a shit-disturber.” He began getting himself into his coat, movements stiff. “So pick up your marvels, Rube, and go home. Let well enough alone. The Project is over.”
“Okay.” Rube smiled as he stood, so genuinely that Danziger smiled back in equal friendship. Rube began gathering the things on the table, dropping them into his leather case. “I’ll walk down with you.”
In the little street-level office Dr. Danziger, hat on now, stood buttoning his coat, glancing around. “Well. The Project’s finished and I’ll never be back. But whatever I ought to feel, mostly I’m just relieved.” He looked questioningly at Rube, who stood waiting, his tan cloth cap in hand, but Rube merely shrugged, and Danziger nodded. “Yes,” he said. “It actually meant more to you than even to me. A very great deal more, I think. Ready?”
Rube nodded, pulled on his cap, but continued to stand looking around, unable, it seemed to Danziger, to take the last steps. He reached forward to a wall and lifted off a small framed photograph of a mustached crew standing or squatting beside an old chain-drive moving truck; the photo was labeled The Gang in white ink. “Here”—he offered it to Danziger. “You want a souvenir?”
Danziger hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. Thank you.” He took the photograph and slid it into his overcoat pocket. Rube took another framed photograph for himself, walked to the door, and when Danziger stepped out, switched off the light. Outside on the walk, he pulled the door closed, then locked it with a key he brought out from the breast pocket of his coat. “Which way you headed, Dr. D?”
“East, then a bus to home.”
“Well, I hope to see you again sometime, Dr. Danziger.”
“Yes, I hope to see you, Rube. I do. But let’s just leave that to fate, all right?”
“Right. Okay.” They shook hands, said goodbye, and turned away. After half a dozen steps Rube stopped to look down at the key in his hand. He glanced back to see Danziger walking away, then looked up the blank brick wall beside him to the weathered lettering painted around the roofline. He tightened his fingers on the key in his palm, turned and threw it, high and hard as he could, across the street. Stood listening, then heard it strike metal somewhere within the tall rows of stacked squashed car bodies behind the chain fence across the street. Then he walked away.