GEORGE ALL THE WAY

Originally published Galaxy Science Fiction, October 1956.

Even before the shimmering stopped, Bill Marcer saw that he was being surrounded. He felt a trifle uneasy, though the phlutters had assured him there would be no danger.

Abruptly the shimmering was gone and Marcer seemed to feel the last of his personal molecules slip back into place as the Phleger effect faded. He wriggled his shoulders, threw them back, filled his chest and forced a smile.

“Greetings,” he said to the crowd, pivoting to address as many as possible from the railed platform. “I, Billings Marcer, bring you greetings from the twentieth century” No one had told him to make a speech, but he thought it would be appropriate.

One of the men of the future stepped forward, smiling formally. He was dressed in pantaloons and a skirt, or kilt, and halter top, something like a Macedonian dancer, or maybe a Scot.

“Hi,” this individual said, speaking slowly and distinctly, as if to a foreigner. “Welcome to twenty-one seventy-seven. I’m Jeems Kenth to be your guide. Or would you prefer to make your double O solo?”

“Double o solo?” Bill Marcer repeated. “You mean go around by myself?”

“Oskie-wow-wow,” another pantalooned man said. “You win the sixty-four thousands.” He pronounced each syllable with care.

“What?”

“You did say twentieth century?” the first futureman, Jeems Kenth, asked. He looked anxious.

“Yes.”

“Then everything’s jake,” he said with a visible return of his assurance. “We’ve straightened up and are flying right. Ish-kabibble?”

“On the beam,” his fellow futureman agreed. “Voot!”

“The latter part of the twentieth century,” Marcer said.

It dawned on him that these people, in preparation for his visit, had been studying the folk expressions of his time, or what they thought was his time.

“The latter part?” Jeems Kenth looked disappointed. “Then we have not mastered your language? We are off the beam and icing up?”

“Not at all,” Marcer said quickly. As unofficial ambassador from 1977, he had to be diplomatic. “You’re right in the groove. Reet. Cooking on the front burner, with gas.” He wasn’t fluent in the embarrassing slang of his father’s and grandfather’s time, but he thought he could get by. “Shut my mouth,” he added as he thought of another one.

“Fan my brow!” Kenth said delightedly. “The kid’s okay!”

“Terrif!” added his friend, who identified himself as Aces Jack. “Slip us some skin.”

“Natch,” said Marcer. He got down from the platform and shook hands all around, murmuring “Real George” or “Howza boy?” as he was introduced to Sperris Theo, Stands Thom, Lucez Hank, Wobanx Joce and Jenfooz Ed.

“What say we tie on the feedbag while we chew the rag?” suggested Jenfooz Ed, who was heavy and hearty. “Something for the inner man?”

“Fine,” said Bill Marcer. “That’d be the most, I mean.”

He saw that he had materialized in a public square and that the crowd around him was holding up traffic. Wildly colored three-wheeled vehicles waited calmly for the obstruction to clear, without a honk out of them. But now a uniformed man made his way through the crowd, saying: “Unclutter. Decong.”

Aces Jack went to meet him, saying: “Twonce. Wantroduce chronaut from twencent. Marcers Bill. Bill, Phoebes Dick.”

“Do,” Phoebes Dick said in the clipped speech that apparently was the proper language of 2177. He gave Marcer a brief look and turned away to Aces Jack. “Going? Must unsnarl.”

He went back to the patient traffic jam as Jenfooz Ed and Jeems Kenth led the group toward a building shaped, Marcer thought, something like a hamburger. He felt a bit hurt by Phoebes Dick’s abruptness. The man could have looked up at least one slang expression, for politeness’ sake.

Jeems Kenth seemed to sense Marcer’s disappointment. “P.D.’s a cop,” he said. “You savvy how cops are on duty. Dum-da-da-dum.”

“Check,” Marcer said. He had no idea what the musical phrase was meant to convey.

* * * *

A big table had been reserved for them at the hamburger joint, as Marcer felt obliged to call it. Bowls on the table were piled high with familiar raw fruit and unfamiliar prepared foods.

“Yes, we have no bananas,” said Lucez Hank brightly, although they had. “Pile in. Your stomach must think your throat’s been cut.”

“That’s right,” Marcer nodded agreeably. “Haven’t eaten for a couple of hundred years, come to think of it.”

Everybody laughed uproariously and for a while there was no conversation, only the sound of eating, which was done with the fingers.

As Bill Marcer chewed, he studied his hosts, thinking of their names. They had called him Marcers Bill, inverting it. Back when surnames began to be used, people took them from occupations: Miller, Goldsmith, Wheeler, Hunter. Then the sons: Robertson, son of Robert—Robert’s son. That seemed to be the style again, here in 2177. Jeems Kenth, then, had been Jeem’s Kenneth or—of course!—GM’s Kenneth.

He turned to Kenth, waving a dripless algyburger excitedly. “You’re with General Motors, aren’t you?”

Kenth beamed. “Solid, Jackson.”

Marcer turned to the man on his left. “And Jenfooz Ed. General Foods?”

“Sensash!” Ed agreed.

“And Stands Thom would be with Standard Oil, and Sperris Theo with Sperry’s, and Lucez Hank with Luce’s—publishing. Right?”

“The kid’s a wonder,” Wobanx Joce said from across the table. “Now dig me and Aces Jack.”

“Wobanx.” Marcer pondered it. “World Bank?” he guessed. They nodded in delight. “But Aces Jack? You’ve got me there, unless you’re in the playing-card business.”

Jack grinned. “Higher stakes. Try AEC.”

“Atomic Energy Commission?”

“Corporation. Defederalized.”

“Of course,” Marcer said. “Then that cop—Phoebes Dick. Could Phoebe be FBI?”

“Bull’s eye!” said Lucez Hank. “Now you level with us, Marcers Bill. What’s your line?”

“None, really. I’m what the papers call the heir to a silicone fortune. Just a playboy with a lot of money, which is why I’m here. I guess if I had any descendants, one of them might be Slix Bill. Tell me,” he said, forgetting to slang it up in his excitement, “is there anybody like that around? Could I see him?”

There was a silence that Marcer took for embarrassment. Stands Thom broke it with a laugh. “That’d be illegal, Fosdick, old boy. It’d be like wising you up to when you were going to kick the bucket. Couldn’t tip your mitt, you know.”

“It wouldn’t matter,” Marcer said. “I won’t remember any of this, anyhow. Didn’t they tell you, when they arranged my trip, that I’ll have an amnesia shot when I get back? Time travel’s still top secret in 1977.”

“Fill us in,” Jeems Kenth said. “We have the general picture, of course, but you’re a history book on legs. Give us the straight lowdown.”

Bill Marcer flicked crumbs from his algyburger into the disposal slot in the middle of the table. “Well,” he said, “time travel was a Government project till it ran into budget trouble. Budgets haven’t become obsolete, have they?”

They shook their heads, smiling ruefully.

For years, he told them, Congress had appropriated money and the top-secret Ingersoll Project had gobbled it up, without notable success.

On its best try, IP sent an expendable research worker five minutes into the future. He didn’t come back. But when the five minutes had elapsed, there he was. The intervening time simply hadn’t existed for him.

This sort of research didn’t seem productive, economically or militarily. The costs worked out to about a hundred million dollars a minute, so the House Appropriations Committee balked at voting new billions for the next year’s program. One committee member wanted to know if there wasn’t a private agency that could carry on. The Rockefellers, maybe, or the Fords. The committee counsel was instructed to look into it.

His looking produced the Phleger Foundation, consisting of the tax-free millions of a West Coast airplane manufacturer. Phleger set up his Foundation’s time division in a vast piece of property outside Los Angeles, which he’d taken over in one of his less inspired mergers. The property had been vacant for years and the chronicians swarmed in.

To the Phleger people, the fact that someone had gone five minutes into the future proved time travel practical. The principle had to be the same for five years, a jump they eventually achieved. But these were one-way trips and valuable chronicians were lost to research for whatever span of time they jumped.

Then, one historic day, a round trip was achieved. From that time on, the Foundation began to earn money faster than it could be spent. It accomplished this by making time travel a plaything of the idle rich.

Old Philip Phleger personally took charge of hawking tours to Phleger’s future among adventurous young millionaires whose current fad, motor-sledding in the Antarctic, had begun to pall.

“Have you tried phluttering?” Old Man Phleger would say. “It’s the latest thing. Certain tax advantages, too, you know.”

Bill Marcer, after Phleger’s legal section codified, his medical people examined, his psychologists analyzed, and the Old Man himself had a whirl at it, was among the first non-professionals to phlutter.

Marcer signed the check, the waiver and the medical form and climbed onto the open-railed platform in the great shed. The shimmering came, obscuring the figures of the chronicians watching him intently from their banks of machines. Things went gray, he sneezed a couple of times and, gripping the railing tightly, he phluttered into 2177.

“And here I am,” he told Jeems and Aces and Stands and the rest. “Just a playboy on a fling. It’s certainly been good of you to give up your valuable time to entertain me.”

“Not at all,” Aces Jack said pleasantly. “Don’t low-rate yourself. It takes two to tango.”

“If you mean my money and Phleger’s brains, you’re right. Well, then, if you don’t mind, I’d like to see more of 2177. I’ve only got two hours.”

Jeems Kenth looked at his wristwatch.

“Why, that’s the same as mine,” Marcer said. He pushed up his sleeve to compare them. “A Hamilton.”

“An heirloom,” Kenth explained. “Been in the family for generations. My time is your time, eh, Rudy?”

Marcer laughed. “I’ve heard of Rudy Vallee, of course, but he was really before my time. You know, if you don’t mind my saying so, all these slang expressions—well, they’re a bit of a strain. We speak—spoke—pretty straight English back in 1977.”

Kenth looked hurt. “We were trying to make you feel at home. I, for one, put in many an hour at the histoviewer to learn your quaint expressions.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve offended you.”

“Forget it,” Jenfooz Ed broke in. “Sweep it under the rug. Look, fellas, our man from the past has to go back soon and we’re wasting his valuable time. And I do mean valuable, eh, Bill? I’ll bet Old Man Phleger took a stack of the green before he let you climb aboard.”

“I have some left,” Marcer grinned.

“Well, you won’t spend it here. Everything’s on the house. Now what would you like to do? How about—”

“I’d like to see what you’re doing with silicones,” Marcer interrupted. “It’s the family business, you know. I’ll probably be going into it when or if I settle down.”

“Great idea,” Aces Jack said, “but I’m afraid the slix works is pretty far out. You’d never get back in time to go back in time, if you follow me. We’ve got to get you on that platform when the gong sounds or I hate to think what’d happen to your molecules.”

“Oh?” Marcer said in alarm. “I didn’t know—”

“Never fear,” Jenfooz Ed boomed. “We’ll see that you’re de-phluttered in one piece. What I was going to say was, why don’t we give our guest a gander at the girly line?”

“Girly line?” Marcer brightened. “You mean women? Come to think of it, I haven’t seen any of your women. They’re not extinct, are they?”

“Perish forbid!” Stands Thom exclaimed. “Let’s show the young buck.”

“Bring on the girls!” cried Jenfooz Ed. “Va-va-voom!” He ran to a door on which the word Women was lettered.

“Open the door, Richard!” Aces Jack shouted to him. “Let there be titillation for our guest in his last remaining minutes!”

The door opened and Bill Marcer was indeed titillated by the bevy of near-buxom young women who emerged in a little dancing run. Lilting music from hidden speakers accompanied their entry. Each wore a differently daring costume and each danced up to him and introduced herself with a kiss and a verse.

“I’m Daysend Mae, for your hours of play,” said a red-headed charmer.

A raven-haired beauty told him: “They call me Jet; I help you forget.”

“Abandon your worry and play with Terri,” recited a striking blonde.

Marcel’s head was swimming from the subtly changing whiffs of perfume. He was laughing in delight and had difficulty puckering his lips to do justice to the variegated kisses he was receiving.

He grabbed at the fourth girl and for a delicious moment held her in his arms. This one whispered: “I’m off at six, honey. Meet me at Exit C.” She gave him a little bump with her tummy and winked as she danced away.

Before he could digest her message—she was a most appealing strawberry blonde—an auburn-haired dream was upon him, cooing: “Flee with Bea beyond the sea.” She flickered her long eyelashes against his cheek as she bestowed her kiss.

A great gong sounded just as he was puckering up for a statuesque creature whose hair he failed to notice because of her other assets. But at a gesture from Jeems Kenth, she reversed her dance and flitted away. “Sorry, big boy,” she said. “Time’s up.”

And off they went, the gorgeous lot of them, doing a little time step back through the door marked Women.

Marcer, dizzy and lipsticked, reluctantly permitted himself to be led out of the building to the platform that was to take him back to 1977.

“That was fun,” Marcer said, “but what was it? Is that the way you choose your—uh—companions in 2177?”

“One of the ways,” Sperris Theo said. “Those were the playgirls. For a more permanent alliance, there’s the mate date. We knew you wouldn’t have time for that.”

“Hated to drag you away,” Aces Jack put in, “but we can’t have your molecules congealing.”

“Been great having you,” Lucez Hank told him. “Now on your horse and awa-a-y!”

Marcer climbed up on the platform. His hosts gathered around it to shake hands. Even Phoebes Dick, holding back traffic for his departure, gave him a clipped salute.

“I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed knowing you all,” Marcer said. He searched for words. “It was the—the cat’s pajamas.” They were laughing and waving while the shimmering began.

* * * *

When the shimmering stopped, he was back in the shed. Back in the dull past of his own time, he thought, with the sweet kisses of the future still tingling his lips. In a moment, he supposed, he’d get his amnesia shot. Meanwhile, he savored his memory.

The chronicians were shouting and milling around.

“Get that curtain up!” someone seemed to be yelling.

“Throw something over those mockups,” somebody else cried, “and, for God’s sake, get out of here with those costumes. Something’s gone wrong with the shim!”

Marcer clutched the platform rail and stared. He couldn’t see too well because they had a spotlight on him and the rest of the shed was dim. But wasn’t that Wobanx Joce disappearing through a door? And Jeems Kenth crowding behind him, throwing a look of consternation over his shoulder? Kenth, the one who’d worn that “heirloom” wristwatch.

And at the other side of the big room, peeping out from behind a slab of painted scenery—wasn’t that a giggling gang of girls, among whom could be discerned Jet and Terri and Daysend Mae?

Chorus girls. Undoubtedly, for there among them was the strawberry blonde, looking boldly at him and holding up six fingers. “I’m off at six, honey,” she had told him in “2177.”

He’d been taken for a joyride into a phony future. Swindled. Bilked.

Angrily he looked around for Old Man Phleger. He didn’t see him. But there was the top “chronician,” Wagner, the chief of staff of these confidence men who had tried to rook him so expensively. Wagner, a harassed, perspiring man in a smock, was scurrying desperately from one bank of controls to another, throwing occasional hopeless glances at Marcer.

“Wagner!” Marcer said. “You crook! Wait till I get my hands on you!” He climbed over the rail.

Wagner threw out his hands appealingly. “Don’t get excited, Mr. Marcer. I know what you think, but it’s not that way at all. I mean not entirely. I can explain.”

“You’ll explain to the police,” Marcer said. “I’ve had all the explanation I need. Phleger’s future! Nothing but movie sets!”

“Please, Mr. Marcer—”

“—federal offense,” Marcer said, unheeding. “I’m sure the FBI will be interested, too. You even had the gall to hang their name on one of your actors. ‘Phoebes Dick’!”

“Now, Mr. Marcer—”

“Va-va-voom!” Marcer shouted at him. “Oh, phlut-phlut! Yes, we have no bananas! Very clever! The music goes round and round and it comes out fraud. Twenty-three skiddoo to you, kiddo. I’ll be seeing you in court.”

“Mr. Marcer, listen to me,” Wagner pleaded. “I admit we staged the whole thing. I admit it and I’ll tear up your check if you want me to. But first listen. Time travel is possible. You would have gone into the legitimate future if our machine hadn’t broken down at the last minute.”

Wagner’s earnestness was obvious.

“The machine broke down?”

Wagner wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his smock. “We didn’t want to disappoint you. Frankly, we were afraid that if we weren’t ready on time, you’d change your mind about your donation, and we needed the money. So we faked it, intending to explain later and give you a rain check.”

“A rain check?” Marcer echoed.

“Yes. When the machine is repaired, we’re prepared to send you into the legitimate future—free of charge—if you’re still interested.”

“Free?” Marcer calmed down. “Well, now.” He considered. “I guess there’s nothing to lose. I could stop payment on the check even if you didn’t tear it up.”

“We’ll tear it up. After this fiasco, we need your good will even more than your money.”

* * * *

The Phelger people fixed their machine within a week.

Bill Marcer thought it over, went back, laughed with Wagner and let his check go through. He signed a new waiver and climbed up on the railed platform.

His decision might have been influenced by the strawberry blonde, whose role in the phony follies of 2177 was the only one that really meant anything. She’d waited for him, as she had promised, at Exit C, at six.

Now the shimmering began and the figures of Wagner and the other chronicians faded.

Marcer didn’t like anything about the real future. It was chill and drizzly and he couldn’t see very far. Men in gray uniforms ringed the platform. They wouldn’t talk to him and refused to let him climb over the rail. His visit lasted only ten minutes, but it seemed an hour and he kept sneezing all the time.

He preferred the fake.

When he got back from this damp nothing of a future, he promised himself, he and the strawberry blonde were going to have a mate date.