Here is the best story submitted in answer to the theme question: "What Will Life in America Be Like 100 Years From Now?" ... Written by an undergraduate at the University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky, it pictures the America of 2054 as part of a world empire run by an Italian dictator and very similar to that of the ancient Caesars and the early Roman Empire. There is one language, one religion and customs and laws have changed to suit the times. But, basically, human nature hasn't changed and there is the omnipresent clash of faction against faction. The theme is that a dictatorship is the only perfect form of government. If there is a moral, it is that there is no permanent form of government.
One of the requirements for entering IF's College Science Fiction Contest was that the contestant be a "simon pure" amateur—never having been published professionally. This is Andy Offut's first published story, and it has been accorded the same editing we give to professional manuscripts. No rewriting or revisions have been made. See November IF for complete announcement of this and the six other winners in this nation-wide contest.
He sat down suddenly. He stared up at the man.
"Say it again," he muttered.
He knew what the answer would be even before the man repeated it in that quiet voice.
"This is June 3, 2054."
The fellow wasn't kidding him. He was serious enough. But a couple of minutes ago it had been May 15, 1954. He looked at his watch and grunted. Less than four minutes ago it had been 1954. Reality. Now it was June 3, 2054. There were four steel walls. There was a steel chair. There were no windows.
He tried to take it calmly. But the unbelievable horror of being where he was and when he was and the man calmly repeating, "This is June 3, 2054," screamed for release.
"No! No! You're lying! It's impossible!" He grabbed the man's tunic and drew back a doubled fist. His chair went over behind him.
Then a stiff thumb jabbed him in the short ribs and he grunted and went down.
"This is June 3, 2054. You are still in Louisville, Kentucky. You are standing in a room adjoining the laboratory in the Time Building on 3rd Street at Eastern Parkway. This is the receiving room. My name is Kevin Ilaria. You've come through time. Is that so impossible to grasp? You're a thinking man. Educated!"
He looked up from the floor.
"Well?"
"So I'm a thinking man and an educated man. And what happens? I'm sapped. I'm shanghaied. I'm walking down Confederate Place to my old fraternity house at 1:00 in the morning. I've just had a row with my girl. I'm heading for the fraternity house to see who'll go down to Herman's and get good and drunk with me. And somebody clobbers me. The next thing I remember I'm sitting in a steel chair in a steel room without any windows. Just like this one. There's a man standing there. A man with watery, myopic eyes under bushy brows and his hair parted in the middle. He's Doctor Borley, of the University of Louisville Chemistry Department. There's another man with him. A little fellow with thick glasses and a crew cut and eyes like the slits between closed Venetian blinds. He's Doctor Schink, of the Psychology Department. They're talking about me."
"Umn hmn. Now you're beginning to sound normal. Doctors Borley and Schink are our agents in 1954. Do you know where you were?"
"I told you. In some sort of steel room without win—"
The man made an impatient gesture with his hand. "No, I mean where. You were in a steel chamber in the Daynolds Metals Plant. It stood on this spot in 1954. Two people knew—know—about that room."
"Doctor Borley and Doctor Schink?"
"I'm glad you've calmed down. Now we can talk."
Jay wasn't quite ready to calm down. "You stand there in that Roman outfit and talk about being calm. To me. To me, Jay Welch, a history major who took his AB from the University of Louisville in 1950. Jay Welch, average guy, who got into an average argument with the girl he pinned in 1950 and went for a walk to drown his sorrows and wound up one hundred years from where—when—he started. I—"
"Then you admit you've come through Time?"
"I may as well."
Ilaria cursed quietly. "But you're not an average guy. You have a working knowledge of chemistry and biology and physics and history and a few arts and sociology and psychology and geopolitics and literature and the English language as spoken in AD 1954. You hope to be successful as a writer. You're Public Relations Consultant with Duo-Point, one of the biggest corporations in your nation in 1954."
"Yes," Jay Welch said. "And I make good money. Even better than a bus driver or a steam-fitter. So?"
"So here you are. 1954's representative to 2054." Ilaria was only a man. He could not keep the flourish and the Hollywood grandeur out of his voice.
"Yes! And what happens tomorrow when I don't show up for work? What happens in a few days when people find out I've disappeared? What happens when they find out Julie was the last person I was with? What—"
"You're getting yourself worked up again, Jay Welch. Don't you think we have thought of those things? We've brought you across one hundred years, Jay Welch."
"Yes," Jay said quietly, flatly. "Yes." Then just as flatly, just as quietly he said, "Why?"
"So you've remembered to wonder about that at last." Ilaria smiled. Jay noticed that the smile was one-sided and pulled back the left corner of Ilaria's mouth. He stood there and looked down at Jay Welch, who had forgotten that he was sitting on the floor. His tunic was white and there were three diamond-shaped silver pieces in a vertical line on each elbow-length sleeve. There was a wide blue stripe and a narrow silver stripe at the hem of his tunic and at his sleeves. He wore sandals. His belt was leather and there was a holstered pistol of some sort hanging at his left hip. In tiny blue script above his left breast pocket were the words 'Trib. Ilaria'. On the pocket was a red disk with the letters PR. A silver-worked blue cloak was flung over his shoulders. Except for the identification and the odd fabric of his clothes and the holstered gun he looked very like a young Roman of the first century.
Ilaria's slow smile pulled back the left corner of his mouth. "Because you are who you are and what you are. Because you attended the University of Louisville and Doctors Borley and Schink knew you. Because they chose you. Merely because they chose you. They might've chosen anyone else.
"We've your personality pretty well mapped out. We expected violence. That's why I'm here. I'm a psychologist and an anthropologist. I'm a fast-talker and I can convince people and place them at ease. I'm also big enough to handle you, Jay Welch."
From his position on the floor Jay looked up at Ilaria and decided the man from 2054 was big enough. Jay Welch was six feet one inch tall. He weighed one seventy-three and wore a 40-long suit. Kevin Ilaria was bigger.
Jay was forced to grin. The tall blond man was a likeable guy, at that. A human being.
"Who are you?"
"Kevin Ilaria. Doctor of Psychology. That entitles me to the silver band on my tunic. Also a Tribune. That entitles me to the blue stripe and the three silver diamonds and the gun."
"A Tribune? In what? Of what?"
"In the Forces. In the actual ranks, a Tribune commands 7,000 men, 250 planes or a base, or 40 tanks. But I've never had a chance to go into the field. There has been no cause to fight. Meantime I'm stationed at Standiford Field as second-in-command. A friend of mine named Rinaldi fills in for me. He's a Sub-Tribune.
"I've been specializing in the study of Time."
"The way you say Time it sounds as though it were capitalized. Where I come from Time with a capital T is a magazine."
Kevin Ilaria laughed. He reached down a hand. "Get up," he said, and, taking Jay's forearm, helped him to his feet.
"Let's go," he said.
Jay didn't bother to ask where they were going. He followed the Tribune out the door and into the hall. On the wall just outside the door, was a black box. Two squares cut into it shone with a faint white light. Ilaria paused and shielded the lighted areas a moment with his hand, and Jay saw the light go out in the room they had just left. Ilaria closed the door. As he turned, Jay saw the white letters PR emblazoned on the back of his cloak.
"This way," he said. Jay noticed that Ilaria walked on his right, so that the Tribune's gun was between them.
"The way I said Time, it is capitalized. It means all the Time since the beginning. It's a corporation, like your Duo-Point. Only much larger, and much less known. Our job is to learn."
"That's a big order," Jay commented. "You learn by—borrowing—emissaries?"
Ilaria laughed again. "Thanks for the phraseology, but it wouldn't worry me if you called it 'kidnaping' or 'shanghaiing.' You're right, of course. We learn by sending men from this age to other ones, and by pulling men from other ages to this one. Doctor Schink is our Emissary to 1954. His real name is Clyde Gabrinaldi. Borley is our contact there ... rather, then."
"Well I'll be damned! I've gone to Clyde a lot of times for advice."
The left corner of Ilaria's mouth pulled back as his grin widened. "Umn hmn. He's married, too. With a child. He's there for good."
Jay was afraid to ask if emissaries from the past to 2054 were "there for good" too. He changed the subject.
"You started to tell me before—"
"Oh, yes. I'm to be your teacher and companion. But I'll try to give you a quick fill-in. Our world of 2054 is quite different from yours. And, we hope, in better shape. We've proved that the only way to maintain world peace is by world government. And the only successful type of government is a dictatorship."
Jay gasped. "You mean the entire world—has reverted to dictatorship?"