A Century of Progress by Fred Saberhagen Page B

pills.” Her smallish hand held out two yellow capsules in front of him, and then produced from somewhere a styrofoam cup of water. “For launching we want you at peak alertness.”
    “Instead of at peak learning ability.”
    “What was that?”
    “I said”—he swallowed pills and water—”I have to be not quite so impressionable now. Or when I get there. Someone might tell me to do the wrong thing. Not so damn suggestible.”
    And Ginny surprised him by being briefly delighted, as if she were rooting for him personally. “You’re right. Oh, beautiful, Alan, you’re with us, I know it for sure now. This is going to work.”
    And Norlund, even knowing that he judged from an abyss of ignorance, felt pleased that he thought so too.
    He was up in the driver’s seat of the big old Dodge, fumbling briefly for a seatbelt that of course did not exist, when some kind of almost silent hell began to break loose just outside the doors of the farthest bay of the garage. And all at once those doors were rolling up by themselves, moving to the accompaniment of slow warbling sound effects. The light that came in from outside was not a normal light; it was mottled, and though at moments it might have been acceptable as normal, it changed swiftly. It did not look like ordinary daylight, or moonlight, or even any kind of artificial lighting that Norlund had ever seen before.
    The doors were not yet fully open when the odd sounds stopped, and to Norlund’s astonishment a large old-fashioned black sedan, a car that Cagney or George Raft might have driven through a gangster movie, came rolling in under them. Ginny and Dr. Harbin, looking as much surprised as Norlund felt, jumped back out of the car’s way.
    The old-fashioned sedan entered the garage bouncing on stiff springs, as if it had had to negotiate some kind of large hump just outside the doors. From where Norlund was sitting in the Dodge it was impossible to see outside through those doors, but now the entering light was going mad, putting on a syncopated disco show. And the instant that the sedan was fully inside, the doors came rolling down, this time with the slamming speed of a guillotine.
    Men were already piling out of the black sedan. Not Raft or Cagney, but these characters’ clothes would have fitted them: all three of them were wearing dark topcoats, along with other winter garments, and two of them were carrying the third. On second glance Norlund was sure that he saw snow melting on the black car’s roof, while mist formed on its windows as they warmed.
    The first man out of the car was a beefy character about thirty years old. Before he was completely out he was shouting excitedly at Ginny and Harbin: “When do we transship? He’s got two creases on ‘im!”
    Harbin raised an authoritative voice “We’re in the middle of a launching here—”
    The two new arrivals who could stand stood holding their helpless comrade who might have been dead for all that Norlund could tell. They responded to Harbin in what quickly became a shouting match.
    “—attack’s going to diffuse this far—”
    “—pack-year has precessed out of range—” At least that was one set of words that Norlund’s ears seemed to be recording.
    “—transshipment clockwise is not an option—”
    Abruptly Harbin turned back to Norlund. Leaning in through the truck’s open window, the white-coated man spoke with superbly controlled haste. “We’re going to have to launch you immediately. Roll up your window till you get clear of the garage. When you drive out, you’ll be in nineteen thirty-three. We’re all depending on you to complete this mission properly; if we should lose this—”
    A klaxon interrupted, deafeningly loud. It had to be some kind of alarm. The doctor backed away from the truck, motioning for Norlund to raise his window and get moving. Norlund, cranking up the glass with his left hand, noted that the window on the other side of the cab was closed already, and