Brogg produced a thick stack of minislips. “As a matter of fact, I was going to get in touch with you about the situation just now. The High Government’s taken quite an interest. Koll no doubt has told you that Kloofman himself is involved. I have the new statistics. In the first four months of this year sixty-eight thousand prolets have vanished.”
“But you’re on the case?”
“Of course,” Brogg said.
“Progress report?”
“Well,” Brogg said, pacing up and down the little room and wiping the sweat from his heavy jowls, “you know the theory, though it’s been occasionally controverted. That the hoppers are starting out from our proximate timenexus. I’ve plotted it all. Tell him, Leeward.”
Leeward said, “A statistical distribution shows that the theory is correct. The present disappearances of prolets are linked directly to historical records of the appearance of the so-called hoppers in the late twentieth century and succeeding years.”
Brogg pointed to a blue-covered volume lying on Quellen’s desk. “History spool. I put it there for you. It confirms my findings. The theory’s sound.”
Quellen ran a finger along his jawline and wondered what it was like to carry around as much fat on one’s face as Brogg did. Brogg was perspiring heavily, and his expression was a sad one; he was virtually begging Quellen with his eyes to open the oxy vent wider. The moment of superiority pleased the harried CrimeSec, and he made no move toward the wall.
Crisply Quellen said, “All you’ve done is to confirm the obvious. We know the hoppers have been taking off from this approximate era. That’s been a fact of record since roughly 1979. The High Government directive orders us to isolate the distribution vector. I’ve developed an immediate course of action.”
“Which has been approved by Koll and Spanner, of course,” Brogg said insolently. His jowls quivered as his voice rumbled through them.
“It has,” Quellen said with as much force as he could muster. It angered him that Brogg could so easily deflate him. Koll, yes, Spanner, yes—but Brogg was supposed to be his assistant. Brogg knew too much about him, though. Quellen said, “I want you to track down the slyster who’s shipping these hoppers back. Do anything within the codes to halt his illegal activity. Bring him here. I want him caught before he sends anyone else into the past.”
“Yes, sir,” Brogg said with unaccustomed humility. “We’ll work on it. Which is to say, we’ll continue our already established line of exploration. We have tracers out in various prolet strata. We’re doing all we can to pull in a lead. We think it’s only a matter of time now. A few days. A week. The High Government will be satisfied.”
“Let’s hope so,” Quellen snapped, and dismissed them.
He activated a view-window and peered at the street far below. It seemed to him that he could make out the distant figures of Brogg and Leeward as they appeared on the street, jostled their way to a belt, and disappeared among the multitudes that thronged the outdoor environment. Turning away, Quellen reached for the oxy vent with almost savage joy and flipped it to its widest. He leaned back. Hidden fingers in his chair massaged him. He looked at the book Brogg had left for him, and thumbed his eyeballs wearily.
Hoppers!
It was inevitable, he realized, that this would be dumped on him. All the odd things were, the scrawny conspiracies against law and order. Four years ago, it had been that syndicate of bootlegged artificial organs. Quellen shuddered. Defective pancreases peddled in pestilent alleyways, throbbing blood-filled hearts, endless coils of gleaming intestines, marketed by shady slysters who flitted noiselessly from zone to zone. And then it had been the fertility bank and the grubby business of the sperm withdrawals. And then the alleged creatures from the adjoining universe who had run through the streets of Appalachia clashing hideous red mandibles and clutching at children with scaly claws. Quellen had handled those things, not brilliantly, for brilliance was not his style, but competently, at least.
And now hoppers.
The assignment unsettled him. He had haggled for secondhand kidneys and he had quibbled over the price of ova, all in a day’s work, but he did not like this business of coping with illegal time-travel. The framework of the cosmos seemed to warp a little, once you admitted the possibility that such a thing could occur. It was bad enough that time kept flowing relentlessly forward; a man could understand that, though he did not necessarily have to like it.
Backward, though? A reversal of all logic, a denial of all reason? Quellen was a reasonable man. Time paradoxes troubled him. How easy it would be, he knew, to step into the seat and leave Appalachia behind, return to the tranquil humidity of his African hideaway, shrug off all responsibility.
He conquered the creeping apathy that beset him and snapped on the projector. Stereoscopic Julesz figures flashed on the screen while his eyes adjusted to undifferentiated blacks and whites. The Julesz edge kept the screen perpetually in focus, no matter what the degree of optical distortion. The history spool began to unroll. Quellen watched the words, sharp as blades, stream by:
The first sign of invasion from the future came about the year 1979, when several men in strange costumes appeared in the district of Appalachia then known as Manhattan. Records show they appeared with increasing frequency throughout the next decade, and when interrogated all ultimately admitted that they had come from the future. The pressure of repeated evidence eventually forced the people of the twentieth century to accept the disturbing conclusion that they were in truth being subjected to a peaceful but annoying invasion by time-travelers.
There was more, a whole reel more, but Quellen had had enough for the moment. He cut the projector off. The heat of the little room was oppressive, despite the air conditioning and the oxy vent. He could smell his own acrid sweat and didn’t like the sensation. Quellen looked despairingly at the confining walls, thinking with longing of the murky stream that ran by the front porch of his African retreat.
He nudged the pedal stud of the minislip dictator and delivered himself of a few memos:
“1. Can we catch a live hopper? That is, a man from our own time who went back, say, ten or twenty years and has lived on back through his own lifespan a second time? Are there such men? What would happen if one met himself of pre-hop existence?
“2. Assuming capture of a live hopper, apply interrogation techniques to discover source of original backward momentum.
“3. Current indications are that hopper phenomenon ceases as of year 2491. Does this indicate success in our prevention attempts or merely lacunae in the records?”
“4. Is it true that no hoppers were recorded prior to A.D. 1979? Why?
“5. Consider possibility of masquerading as Class Fifteen prolet in order to experience solicitation by hopper-transport agents. Would such an arrest be considered entrapment? Check with legal machines.
“6. Take depositions from families of recently departed prolet hoppers. Sociological index, reliability rating, etc. Also attempt to retrace events leading up to disappearance of hopper.
“7. Perhaps—”
Quellen rejected the last memo in unfinished form and kicked over the pedal. The dictator thrust minislips at him. He let them lie on his desk and started the projector again, reeling out some more of the history spool.
Analysis of the time-hopper records indicates that all reported arrivals took place within the years 1979 and 2106 A.D.—that is, an era prior to the establishment of the High Government.(Quellen made a mental note. Possibly it was significant.)Those hoppers who upon interrogation were willing to admit to a year of departure listed the same aslying between 2486 and 2491 A.D.,without exception. Of course, this does not foreclose the possibility of unreported hoppers departing from a time other than that, just as it does not eliminate all possibility that arrivals were not confined wholly to the aforementioned period of 127 years. Nonetheless—