AFTER THE FACT Read online

  AFTER THE FACT

  By

  Fred Saberhagen

  "YOUR ONLY CHANCE LIES IN PREVENTING THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN…"

  "What?"

  A burst of audio and visual static reduced reception to unintelligible noise. Then the paradox-generated interference was gone again, as suddenly as it had come.

  "…Fourteenth of April at Ford's Theater—" blast, crackle.

  "…you must be within two meters of the President… just before the bullet smashes into Lincoln's brain. Your total window of opportunity will be three seconds."

  FRED SABERHAGEN

  AFTER

  THE FACT

  BAEN

  BOOKS

  AFTER THE FACT

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1988 by Fred Saberhagen

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  260 Fifth Avenue

  New York, N.Y. 10001

  First printing, March 1988

  ISBN: 0-671-65391-1

  Cover art by David Mattingly

  Printed in the United States of America

  Distributed by

  SIMON & SCHUSTER

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, N.Y. 10020

  ONE

  Central Illinois was about the flattest place that Jerry Flint had ever seen. Plowed fields, islanded here and there by clumps of trees and farm buildings, seemed to go on forever. The horizon was lost in an indeterminate haze more appropriate to Indian Summer than Spring.

  Here and there along the interstate that stretched southwest from Chicago, grain elevators in tiny towns stood up like junior skyscrapers. Occasionally the highway would line up on one of them and rush straight at it for three or four miles, only to swerve at the last moment, bypassing both tower and town completely.

  Jerry had intended to use the driving time to prepare himself for the interview facing him in Springfield, but found himself listening to the wind rushing past instead. Before he was well out of Chicago he had begun to realize that there was not a whole lot in the way of preparation that he could do; since he knew next to nothing about the people who ran the Pilgrim Foundation for Historical Research, it was difficult to imagine what sort of programming or systems work they might want from him.

  Tom Scheffler, a fellow student at St. Thomas More in Chicago, had told Jerry that he had worked for the man Pilgrim himself about a year ago, had been well paid for his labors, and recommended that Jerry give the Foundation a try.

  Or had Scheffler said even that much? Jerry couldn't remember now but certainly Scheffler, a big kid from Iowa, had been generally encouraging. Scheffler was an undergraduate in computer engineering at the University, where Jerry Flint was now working on his master's in computer science. The two of them had shared one class and a couple of seminars, and over the past few months had become moderately well acquainted.

  Jerry didn't have the impression that Scheffler was much given to jokes, at least no more than the average student. So now Jerry, looking back at the brief discussion the two of them had shared on the subject of the Pilgrim Foundation, began to find it rather strange, and even a touch ominous, that the big youth had seemed secretly amused—or even a bit excited by the prospect of Jerry's coming interview.

  Their only important conversation on the matter, Jerry recalled, had been conducted between classes, in something of a rush.

  When Jerry brought up the subject, Scheffler had shrugged and smiled. "Sure, if Olivia says it's okay,—and she told you to talk to me, right?—give it a try. The guy does pay well, I can testify to that. He wasn't 'the Pilgrim Foundation' when I worked for him, though."

  "Oh? What did you do?"

  Scheffler's inward amusement seemed to grow. "No computer stuff, really," he said at last, apparently groping for the right words. "My work involved some traveling," he added, finding them. "And there were some historical artifacts."

  "Oh?" Jerry was squinting, scowling, trying to understand, and at the same time not wanting to be late for his next class. "This Pilgrim is a collector, then? In some kind of private business?"

  "I'm sure he is. Look, I can't really give you any details. He'll have to do that. But I know Olivia, too, and if she's the one who's trying to recruit you, I'd say it was definitely okay." And with a wave of hands they parted company as each hurried on to his next class.

  Olivia—Jerry knew her only by her first name—the person who had suggested that he talk to Scheffler about this, was something of a mystery herself. She was only a voice on the phone to Jerry Flint; she had started the whole business by phoning him one day out of the blue, and suggesting that as a bright student he might be willing to accept a summer job that would guarantee the financial support he was going to need if he wanted to go on and get a doctorate in computer science.

  Did he want that? For Jerry that degree was life's big brass ring: not only was the subject matter incredibly interesting, but people with such advanced degrees in computer science were currently going directly from school into jobs that started at a hundred thousand a year. Still, it was a little odd that Olivia was also the one who recommended that he talk to Scheffler.

  When Jerry, having been given a phone number to call in Springfield, came to talk to Dr. Pilgrim himself, he was assured that if he were hired, a grant could be arranged, above and beyond his pay for the coming summer, that would finance his schooling all the way to a Ph.D. in computer science.

  Jerry's preliminary research in the university library had failed to turn up any reference to grants from a "Pilgrim Foundation." Of course the library's list might well be out of date. Nor could he even find a foundation of that name listed anywhere; but, he told himself, that that meant little; these organizations came and went.

  So on the appointed day, with a week of spring break clear ahead of him, he rented a car and started driving south.

  Jerry hadn't visited the state capital since a seventh-grade historical tour, and he was vaguely surprised that the place turned out to be a modest scale model of the metropolis to the north, complete with suburbs. There were no grain elevators here, but as Jerry drove in he observed a couple of buildings even taller than grain elevators. One of these, as he got close to it, turned out to be the hotel that he was looking for. At twenty stories or so it loomed far above everything else in sight.

  There was no difficulty in finding a parking space on the street close to the hotel. Jerry climbed out of his little red rented Ford, and pulled on the suitcoat that had been riding on the back of the front seat. He tightened and straightened his unaccustomed necktie, and set out for the hotel lobby, leaving his bag in the car's trunk for the time being. Wondering if Dr. Pilgrim might possibly be waiting for him right in the lobby, he checked his image in a passing plate-glass window. Jerry had about given up wishing that he looked a little bigger, older, more mature. The key word for his appearance, he thought, was really nondescript. He could try raising a mustache, but it would probably be thin, and certainly the same commonplace brown as his hair. There was, of course, even less to be done about physical size. At five-seven at least he was a comfortable way from being a midget. And the karate classes he'd been attending for the last two years kept him in good shape.

  As for being and looking older—well, that was certain to take care of itself in time. He was twenty-five now, and still sometimes taken for eighteen.

  The hotel lobby was modern, and at the moment it was pleasantly uncrowded. Perh
aps business was not that great. Jerry approached the desk. Yes, there was indeed a room reserved for Mr. Jeremiah Flint. Yes, prepaid too. There was also a message waiting for Mr. Flint, and Jerry received it along with his room key.

  The note handed over by the desk clerk was handwritten in a distinctive but very legible script, black ink on a sheet of hotel notepaper. It read:

  Dear Mr. Flint,

  Please accept my apologies for not being on hand to welcome you on your arrival. An opportunity to conduct an experiment, one that I dare not pass up, has arisen. If you are able to come to the lodge across from the entrance to New Salem State Park before five o'clock, we shall be able to begin our discussions there, while at the same time you will be able to see something of the Foundation's work.

  In haste,

  A. Pilgrim

  New Salem was only about twenty miles away, according to the desk clerk, who had the directions memorized—it was evidently a favorite tourist destination. As for meeting Pilgrim there before five, that was no problem; it was now only a little after noon.

  An hour later, after settling in and having a cheeseburger in the hotel coffee shop, Jerry was back in his little red Ford, headed out of town again.

  State Route 97 re-entered farmland only a couple of miles from the hotel near the center of town. Presently the highway branched, and the branch Jerry was following became even narrower. Jerry had gathered from a tourist brochure picked up in the hotel that New Salem was a small log-cabin settlement preserved and reconstructed more or less as it had been on reaching its peak of prosperity, sometime in the 1830s. That was about the time young Abraham Lincoln, working on a riverboat, had arrived in the settlement and taken up residence.

  Now, scanning the farmland ahead on both sides of the highway, Jerry saw no sign of any community, historical or otherwise: just farms, hedgerows and islands of trees, leafing out with fresh spring green. Such groves of course might conceal something, but mostly what he could see was the black earth of Illinois, ready and eager to start producing crops. Here and there the fields were already dusted with preliminary green of one fine shade or another. Now and again the freshly turned fields alternated with pasturage. At intervals he could see a tractor laboring in the distance, tugging at some kind of machinery with which Jerry was not familiar. He was pretty much a city kid, or at least a suburban one.

  But now, ahead and to his right, the agricultural expanse was interrupted by a long sweep of woodland that seemed to follow the course of a stream. As the woods drew nearer, the highway drifted right, sliding down along a heretofore invisible slope in the flat Illinois countryside. Then it suddenly drove more deeply, leveling off again under an arch of tall trees that lost itself inside a tunnel of bright new leaves.

  Suddenly there were roadside signs, proclaiming the presence of New Salem State Park. There were log structures to be seen, and split-rail fences. The twentieth century had not entirely disappeared, but it was no longer unquestionably in charge; on that descending slope a border of some kind had been crossed.

  On Jerry's right now, as he cruised the narrow highway at reduced speed, a wooded slope went up. On his left, beyond more trees, he could catch glimpses of a small river, banks already green enough for summer. That, according to his map, would have to be the Sangamon, where Lincoln had once poled his flatboat.

  The motel was on the side of the road toward the river. It consisted of a modest lodge made of logs, and rustic cabins scattered back from the two-lane highway. A handful of cars were parked in the gravel lot.

  Jerry pulled off the road and parked, went through the business of seeing to his coat and tie again, crossed a wooden porch and entered a log-walled lobby. To his eye, moderately experienced in academic appearances, none of the three or four people in sight looked like the head of a foundation. Anyway none of them took any interest in his arrival. After peering vaguely into a restaurant and a gift shop, and generally standing around looking lost for a minute or so, he approached another hotel desk and asked if there were any messages for him.

  "I'm not a guest here, but—"

  The woman behind the counter was rummaging in cubbyholes. "Mr. Flint… yes, there's a message for you, sir."

  This time the note was on a small sheet torn from a pocket notebook. And the handwriting, though nearly as superbly legible as that of the first note, was different, smaller and rather feminine.

  Dear Mr. Flint—

  Sorry again not to be able to meet you. The experiment is keeping Dr. Pilgrim and myself both busy. If you would please come up into the park and join us in front of the Onstot cabin, we can begin your introduction to our rather unusual enterprise. We hope to see you in the park this afternoon.

  Jan Chen

  (for Dr. Pilgrim)

  Whoever Jan Chen might be, there was something intrinsically pleasing, Jerry thought, about her handwriting. The notebook sheet looked businesslike enough, but he thought he could detect the faintest whiff of perfume.

  Jerry decided that he would walk up the hill—he'd done a good bit of driving already today, and would certainly have to do some more. The park entrance proper was a few hundred yards down the highway, but directly opposite the motel parking lot a fairly well-worn though unofficial-looking footpath pointed in the right direction before vanishing among the half-greened trees a few yards in. Breathing spring country air, Jerry crossed the highway—traffic just now was light to nonexistent—and started up.

  The slope he was climbing was not particularly high, but almost until he was there the trees obscured his destination; Jerry wondered if the area had been logged since Lincoln's time. A wasp cruised past then hummed away again. There were a few muddy places at flat spots in the path, but nothing that his city-shod feet could not avoid.

  As Jerry crested the hill, which he saw now was really an extended ridge, a small log cabin suddenly appeared among the trees. Beyond it there was another, and another beyond that. All at once he became aware that the twentieth century had disappeared completely. There was only an earthen path, trees, logs—and above the trees a sky for the moment innocent of jet contrails. The tang of woodsmoke reached Jerry's nostrils, and when he looked for it he could see a faint blue-white trickle rising from the tall stone chimney of the nearest cabin.

  Jerry now noticed that mixed with the smell of woodsmoke came the aroma of cookery.

  The door of the cabin stood ajar in the mild gray afternoon. Out of curiosity Jerry pushed it farther open—this building was an exhibit in a park that was open to the public, right?—and peered into the dim interior, which was lighted only by one small window on another wall.

  A figure moved, near the broad stone hearth where a small fire glowed amid gray ashes. The figure was that of a woman, wearing a bonnet and a long dress—a dress about a hundred years too long. Her face as she turned toward the doorway was shaded by the bonnet, hard to see.

  "Come in," the woman said.

  Jerry stood dead still, one hand on the door's ancient-looking, handcarved latch of wood. "I—" he started to say, and then quit. No, he thought.

  "Come in," she invited cheerfully. "Try some cornbread."

  Blinking against the smoke and dimness, he managed to get a better look at the woman. She was about forty, fresh-faced and a bit plump. In one hand, protected by a thick homemade potholder, she was gripping a high-sided metal pan from which she now began to pry slabs of steaming yellow-golden stuff onto a large white platter that waited on the handmade wooden table. Other dishes on the table held more cornbread already cut into chunks of modest size. There was also, Jerry observed with faint but real relief, a package of paper napkins, very much of the late twentieth century.

  "You had me going for just a minute," he admitted.

  "Beg pardon?"

  "I thought—you being in the costume and everything—oh, never mind. I wasn't sure what was going on." It was easy enough to chuckle now.

  "Oh." The woman was still smiling at him, but not as if she really understood.
"We're from the historical society. We're occupying several cabins here today, demonstrating what life was like for the original settlers."

  "Oh. I see. You're doing a very realistic job." Accepting first a paper napkin and then a piece of cornbread, Jerry spoke in honest admiration of the evident skill required for baking over the open fire. He listened politely to some more information on cooking tools and methods, and then strolled on. Out of the cabin now, he could see that the path continued on to join a system of broad gravel walks. In that direction were scattered a dozen or more log buildings whose loose grouping extended more or less along the top of the wooded ridge.

  Picking up another brochure from a tray mounted on a rustic stand where the official walks began, Jerry learned that there were about twenty buildings in all in the reconstructed settlement. On this gray weekday a very modest number of other tourists were about. Jerry walked forward. He was just thinking that it oughtn't to be hard to pick out a working scientist and his assistant when he saw them. There was no doubt in his mind, though they were still at a considerable distance.

  TWO

  Approaching the man he thought must be Dr. Pilgrim, Jerry walked past a water-powered mill that was, for the moment at least, motionless, a blacksmith shop manned by folk in historic costume, and half a dozen more cabins. Then he was drawing close to the people he thought he was looking for, and their machines.

  The little machines, mounted on what looked like surveyors' tripods, were aimed at what Jerry supposed must be the historic Onstot residence. The man who was concentrating his attention so energetically upon what the machines were doing was a couple of inches shorter than Jerry, compactly built, and of indeterminate age. At least he was still young enough for his black hair to be free of gray. His coloring in general was rather swarthy.