Chapter Text
It was a sunny late December afternoon when they arrived, and one glance at the small city around them showed this wasn’t home. Rembrandt frowned at the meager prospects. “Well, this sure ain’t much to look at. How much time we got here, Q-Ball?”
Quinn frowned at the timer as he did a quick mental calculation. “Wow. I hope we like it here, because we’ve got eight weeks and two days.”
No one liked the sound of that, and Wade looked at the timer to see for herself. Everyone gazed unhappily at the city around them. “Two months,” Wade sighed.
Rembrandt remarked, “I don’t think we’ve seen a San Francisco this small where there actually was a city.”
Quinn commented, “There was that anti-technology Earth where I was stuck in the astral plane.”
This city wasn’t as large as the one on that Earth, and its technology looked none too promising. There were a few sturdy, clunky cars, telephone poles, television antennas, and other emblems of modest progress, but everything was thinner, simpler, more...precarious. Wade thought—but didn’t say aloud—that this place looked almost Third World.
“Yes, well, it does look a bit more primitive than what we’re used to,” Arturo said as he started down the street in search of a newspaper machine. “We’d better learn how to blend in if we’re going to survive for two months.”
“Well,” Quinn smirked, “first we probably shouldn’t rip apart the entire social fabric like we did the last time we stuck around for a while.” They all began to smile at Arturo.
He harrumphed. “That particular social fabric was in serious need of unraveling. I make no apologies for starting the male equality movement.”
Wade patted his arm with a chuckle. “Okay, but try to control yourself here, will you? Don’t start any revolutions you’re not going to be around to finish.” He arched an eyebrow at her, and she laughed.
They continued down the quiet street. This neighborhood was mixed commercial and residential, and the few passersby on the street looked at them with muted curiosity but little friendliness. Wade couldn’t get the idea out of her head that this was the Third World.
They reached a large cross street, and Arturo grumbled as he looked at the sidewalk corners around him. He was looking for a newspaper vending machine, but there was none to be seen. “I wonder where you can buy a newspaper around here?”
“We’ll have to find a drug store or something, I guess,” Quinn answered.
They kept walking down the quiet street, noticing the tired, sad quality of the neighborhood. If this area had ever seen good times, they were a long time gone. Every third storefront was vacant, and some were gutted. It was definitely not the better part of town...if this San Francisco had a better part. A hardware store, a rundown restaurant, a row of derelict buildings, but nothing resembling a store where they could buy a paper. They kept walking.
After he saw the fourth placard in a window he passed, Rembrandt had to speak up. “Did you see the sign in the window back there?” he said as they crossed a quiet street. “It said ‘Colored.’”
“Maybe it’s some sort of advertising,” Wade shrugged.
Rembrandt shook his head. “You’re too young to remember. Hotels and restaurants being labeled ‘For Coloreds’ and ‘Whites Only.’ Even drinking fountains, like being black was some terrible contagious disease.” He rankled at the memory. “There’s nothing like being a second-class citizen in your own country.”
Quinn stiffened as he walked. “I’m glad I’m too young to remember that.”
They paused outside a small bar with a ‘Colored” sign in the window. There wasn’t a single white patron in the place. They walked away solemnly. Arturo said simply, “It looks as though you’ll have a chance to experience it here, whether you like it or not.”
Wade added glumly, “For two months.”
“And two days,” Rembrandt echoed with a sigh.
They continued down the street until they found a busy and prosperous restaurant on the street corner. It looked like a perfect place to have lunch and settle down for a strategy session. Rembrandt was halfway through the door before he caught himself and stepped back outside to check for a “Colored” sign, which he saw below the menu in the window. He shook his head and muttered, “Man, this is going to be tough.”
As they waited to be seated, Arturo watched money changing hands at the register and saw that at least some of it looked familiar, so they would probably be able to pay for their meal; Quinn and Rembrandt both surveilled the patrons, noticing that while the diners were mostly black, there were enough whites scattered around that their group could blend in well enough; and Wade sized up the mood of the people in the restaurant, noticing it was calm, relaxed, just another weekday lunch. Arturo spotted a newspaper rack by the door and quickly got a paper as they were being shown to their corner booth.
They ordered—the food was standard American diner fare—and then each took a section of the paper to get a sense of the place. The most obvious differences from home were found in the advertisements. Fashions were modest, even a little boring. And prices were very low compared with what they knew, especially the food. But the most unsettling difference was the lower level of technology. Stereo turntables were being loudly trumpeted in one ad, and another ad promoted the latest in photography—a single lens reflex camera. There were very few automobile ads, televisions were fairly expensive compared with other items, and there were no computer store ads or airlines offering cheap excursions to anywhere.
Arturo folded his section of the paper back to the front page headlines as he said, “To give it a quick and dirty assessment, ‘Think 1940s.’” Quinn and Rembrandt nodded.
Wade gasped, loudly enough to attract the attention of the people in the next booth. She stared at the page before her in shock, then stammered in a loud whisper, “Oh my God!” The others looked at her with concern as she paled.
“What is it?” Quinn asked.
She glanced up at Arturo solemnly. “What did you say just now?”
“I said, ‘Think the 1940s.’”
She folded over the pages of the newspaper section to hold up for them to see. She whispered hoarsely, “More like 1840s.” The full-page advertisement had the blaring headline: “Slave Auction This Saturday!”
After a stunned silence, Rembrandt snatched the paper section from her hands and read the ad quickly. The others didn’t need to read the ad’s details—they could read his face well enough: Disbelief, shock, disgust, dismay. If he’d had food in his stomach, he might have vomited. He stood unsteadily. “I’ll be right back.” He headed out the front door. Quinn quickly followed him, and the others watched him sit on a bench by the front door. Quinn joined him on the bench, and Wade and Arturo could only look at each other helplessly.
Quinn came back a minute later and solemnly resumed his seat. “He just needs to be by himself for a few minutes. ...He’ll be okay.”
“Yeah, right,” Wade scoffed, “‘okay.’”
“Miss Welles, as tempting as sarcasm is at this moment, it’s not very useful,” Arturo stated. “Emotion and reaction aren’t going to help us. Knowledge is our only way to survive this Earth. We have to learn everything we can about this place so we can learn how to live with this...nightmare.” He softened, then looked out at Rembrandt, who was sitting on the bench with his head down. “My Dear Lord,” Arturo said as he shook his head slightly. “I can’t even begin to understand how he feels.” They watched as Rembrandt stood, took in a deep breath, and then came back into the restaurant.
He took his seat next to Arturo with an apology. “Sorry about that. It just kind of was...a surprise, you know?”
The others nodded in agreement, and the moment was eased further when the energetic young black waitress brought their food. She eyed Rembrandt as she placed his plate before him. “What’s the matter, sugar? You look like your dog just died.”
He looked up at her sadly, then frowned as he thought of something. He asked quietly, “Are you free or slave?”
She spoke without emotion. “Slave.”
He shuddered, then stared at his food. How could he eat this? How could he sit in this place? How could he stand to be on this Earth for two whole months? He began to take in short, harsh breaths. Arturo put a calming hand on his shoulder, but it did little to help.
The waitress squinted at him. “Where are you from, boy? You’re not from Canada, are you? You don’t sound Canadian.” All he could do was shake his head. “Oh, are you from Washington? Or Minnesota or Wisconsin? One of those states?” He shook his head. She leaned in to him confidentially. “Honey, you better settle down. You’re not going to last very long here if you keep this up.” She patted him on the shoulder and went back to her work.
Rembrandt thought hard for a long moment, then gathered himself and looked at his friends. “Don’t worry, I’m all right. I’ll be fine.” Wade reached across the table to pat his hand, and he took it and squeezed it gratefully. “Man, oh man, this is unbelievable.” Something over Wade’s shoulder caught his eye, and he noticed someone in the next booth looking at their held hands with some surprise. Without thinking, Rembrandt let her go and pulled his hands back safely to either side of his plate. “This is crazy.”
Arturo had seen the reaction of the people in the next booth as well, and, as he picked up his knife and fork with deliberate calmness, he said, “Then we’ll have to stay very sane.” He began to slice his food, and, after gearing up and gathering himself with a sigh, Rembrandt picked up his hamburger and forced himself to take a bite.
The meal was good and filling, and the price remarkably low—of course it was, since most of the help wouldn’t be paid—and when it was over, they gathered up the newspaper and headed out onto the street. Rembrandt stayed behind for a minute to chat with their waitress, and when he joined the others on the sidewalk, Wade asked him what he’d said to her. “Nothing. I was just asking her a few questions about how to get along here.” He put his hands in his jacket pockets with a grim resolve. “Like where I can go, and where I can’t, and what I can do, and can’t do.”
Wade smiled sadly and slipped her arm through his elbow as the four began to walk down the street. “Well, now’s not the time for me to start worrying about convention.”
He smiled a bit, then said wistfully, “Yeah, it is. More than ever.” With regret, he gently unwrapped her hand from his arm as they walked. “I remember the old folks told me when I was a kid, ‘You watch out now, you don’t get too fresh with those white women. We don’t want to have to come lookin’ for you in the mornin’.’”
Wade was puzzled. “Come looking for you...what, because you didn’t come home after a hot date?”
“No. You didn’t come home because you’d been lynched.”
She caught her breath.
He continued, “It didn’t happen so much during my lifetime. But the oldest son of the family next door when my mom was growing up got taken away one night. They found him in the morning.” He looked down thoughtfully as he walked. “I don’t want to be found like that.” Wade knew there was more to the story than he was sharing, but she didn’t feel comfortable asking. They walked on in silence.
Arturo finally said, “Our top priorities right now should be finding a place to stay for the night and then doing a great deal of research about this Earth so we can live here safely—together.”
Quinn added, “And if we’re going to be here for two months, we better try to find jobs.”
They traveled through the neighborhood until they came to a major thoroughfare. On the other side of the artery was a more upscale neighborhood of tidy shops and what looked like a couple of hotels. With a glance at the downtrodden poverty behind them, they crossed the street at the turn of the light and entered the white world.
Half a block down they found an old friend—the Dominion Hotel. A familiar landmark was welcome indeed, and the four headed for the open front lobby. Rembrandt hesitated, then stopped. “Ah, I’ll meet you inside.”
The others stopped and looked at him quizzically. Wade asked, “What is it?”
“I have to go around the back.”
Wade frowned her question to him, and he nodded slightly towards a sign on the side of the building: “Colored Entrance,” with an arrow pointing down the narrow alley to the back of the hotel. Quinn scowled, then looked at the open lobby area. The front desk was no more than twenty-five feet away from the door. “Come on, Rembrandt, no one’s going to notice.”
Rembrandt looked solemnly at the clerk at the front desk, who was watching them idly. He looked at Quinn again. “I can’t go through that door. I’ll meet you inside.” He headed down the alley.
Wade put her hands on her hips and blew out an annoyed sigh, but there was nothing to be done, so they went in through the front door to the desk. The clerk nodded. “Good afternoon. How are you folks today?”
“Fine, thank you,” Arturo replied. “We’d like Suite 301, please, if it’s available. If not, 401. And we’ll be staying roughly a week.”
The clerk’s brow furrowed, then he got the registration book. “Will you all be staying together?”
Arturo replied, “Yes. Is that a problem?”
“...Well, I’m sorry, sir, but no negroes are allowed in the front-facing rooms or corridors. If you still want to be in one suite, 628 is available. Is that acceptable?” It was not at all acceptable, but under the circumstances no one objected. The clerk nodded and picked up a pen. “Names, please.”
Arturo answered for the three of them, then Wade added, “And Rembrandt Brown.”
The clerk nodded as he finished writing Arturo’s name. “That’s your slave’s name?”
Wade shuddered, then said in a small voice, “Yeah.”
The clerk nodded as he wrote, and Wade fought a wave of nausea at what she’d just done. She hoped Rembrandt would forgive her. The clerk finished writing and asked Arturo, “Luggage?”
“Ah, no, not this trip.”
The clerk rang the bell, then said, “I’ll send your man up to your room.”
None of the three understood. Quinn said, “Send him up?”
“Well, of course, he has to go up the back elevator.” The clerk eyed their consternation with growing impatience.
Arturo read his reaction and said quickly, “Forgive us. As you’ve undoubtedly guessed, we’re new here. ...Our apologies.”
The white bellboy arrived and the clerk handed him the key. As the three left, he called after them, “Enjoy your stay.”
The rooms were comfortable, if not as nice as other Dominion Hotels they’d known—and probably not as nice as the “Whites Only” suites in the front of the hotel. But once they were all together again, they decided on a game plan for the next day: Quinn, Wade, and Arturo would do research out in the city, and Rembrandt would stay in the room and check out the local TV and radio broadcasts. He objected, but the others argued that until they had a sense of this place, he would need to stay safely out of the reach of this society. He grudgingly agreed.
The next morning, after a room service breakfast—the Dominion’s restaurant didn’t seat black patrons—the four pursued their research assignments. Quinn and Wade went to the main public library, Arturo visited the university, and Rembrandt was left trapped in the room with the television as his only window to the larger world.
The four rendezvoused back at the hotel for dinner to compare notes. Wade began. “This is terrible. From what Quinn and I could find out, there was no Civil War here. Abraham Lincoln never existed, and in his place in history was a man named John Pennefield. To us, Lincoln was ‘The Great Emancipator,’ but here Pennefield was ‘The Great Reconciliator.’ He found a way to bring the North and South together so basically everyone would mind their own business and not interfere with what the other states were doing.” Wade reached into her pocket and produced a local penny. “He’s the guy on the penny. ‘Penny—‘Penny-field.’ They couldn’t resist.”
Quinn continued, “There is a federal government, but as near as we can tell, it doesn’t have much power. It can’t force the states to do anything. States even print their own money, which is just as legal as the national money.”
Arturo nodded thoughtfully. “According to the history books I looked through, by the late 19th Century the United States was an embarrassment to the other Western nations, and it was left behind socially and technologically as no one wanted to have anything to do with a country that had legalized slavery. That in turn hampered the U.S.’s industrial growth, which means this United States never became a world power. The rest of the world suffered tremendously as a result. As the U.S. wasn’t a major industrial power, World War II lasted nearly twenty years. Europe and most of Asia were devastated. The Allies eventually won, but only because when both Britain and Nazi Germany came up with nuclear weapons at the same time, in 1958, British saboteurs destroyed the German factory while the RAF dropped the Bomb on every German city with more than 100,000 people. Whole regions in Europe are still uninhabitable. It was even worse in Asia. Japan virtually doesn’t exist. Do you recall the line about ‘bombing people back to the Stone Age’? That’s nearly happened on parts of this Earth.”
Rembrandt nodded. “Who knew we were so special, huh?” Wade patted his hand. “Well, television was pretty wild. It’s real primitive, sort of like how things were in the ‘50s. Including the fact that there’re no black people anywhere. But there were some interesting things in the news. It sure sounds like the country’s falling apart. Remember when the waitress mentioned Washington and those Midwestern states? On the news they talked about the fact that Washington and Oregon are making a lot of noise about forming their own country. In the Midwest and New England, people are talking about joining Canada. There’ve even been some border fights between California and Oregon, people shooting at each other for no real reason. And there’s violence breaking out in the cities, too. There was a student protest in Texas that turned violent and three kids got killed. It’s getting crazy out there.”
Arturo commented, “I looked over the results of the last several elections. For the last five election years, there has been talk of holding citizen initiatives to abolish slavery in California. But each time opinion polls said they would lose, and so they never pursued it. All the polls indicate that the state is split twenty-five percent in favor of slavery, forty percent against it, and thirty-five percent expressing no preference. There’s no clear majority, so it stays. But the strain is definitely showing. Last week, there was a fight on the UCSF campus between two student groups over the issue. It nearly turned into a riot. And like the border skirmishes Mr. Brown saw on the news, violence is apparently springing up more and more. Things can’t keep going on like this much longer.”
Quinn let out a frustrated sigh. “We just have to get that thirty-five percent with no opinion off their butts.”
“We?” Rembrandt said, with a wink at Wade. “I thought we had a new rule about no revolutions.”
She shrugged. “Well, I never actually put it up for a vote. All those in favor of no revolutions?” She gestured for a show of hands, but no one moved. “All opposed?” She raised her hand, and Rembrandt raised his. “Well, I guess we’re back in business as trans-dimensional revolutionaries.”
Arturo said, “I wouldn’t have business cards made up quite yet. Remember, it didn’t work last time. While outside agitation can sometimes start the ball rolling, lasting change can only come from within.”
“Well, if there is any good news in this,” Wade said, “according to the census two years ago, just over thirty percent of the black population of the U.S. is free. So, you don’t have to pretend you’re a slave.”
Rembrandt sighed. “Well, that’s something, anyway.”
Quinn added, “And five years ago, New Jersey had a state referendum to make slavery legal and it was voted down. So at least things aren’t backsliding. It’s evenly split at twenty-three each between the slave and free states.”
Rembrandt frowned. “Only forty-six states?”
Quinn nodded. “No Alaska, no Hawaii, North and South Dakota are just ‘Dakota,’ and there’s no West Virginia.”
Rembrandt nodded, then shook his head glumly. “But no Lincoln, that’s a shame. Our waitress yesterday, I asked her if she ever got to keep her tips, and when she said yeah, I gave her ten bucks.” No one understood his point. “Two fives. With Lincoln on them.” They realized what he was saying and commiserated. “I was trying to do a good deed, and she probably thought it was some kind of sick joke, giving her funny money.”
Arturo said, “When we start earning local money, you can go back and make amends.” He looked at the other two. “So, work. Tomorrow is job hunting day. I’ll go back to the university and start there.”
Quinn reached for their newspaper and handed half of the back section to Wade. “Have some classifieds.”
She accepted the pages without enthusiasm. “Thanks.”
As the two began to search the job listings and Arturo settled in to read the paper’s front pages, Rembrandt said, “I guess I’ll go hit the streets and ask around.”
The others reacted mutedly. Arturo said, “Mr. Brown, it would probably be a good idea if you stayed here for a little while longer, until we have a real sense of how safe it is for you.”
“I’m not staying locked up in this room for two months.” He looked at them, but they were keeping a united front. “Look, I need to pull my own weight. I appreciate that you want to protect me, but I can take care of myself.”
Quinn said, “Yeah, in a fair fight. Which this isn’t. It’s you against two-thirds of the population. Remmy, it’s okay if you coast on this Earth. You always do your share. But this time, we need to be the guys on the field, and you need to be the one on the bench.”
He reluctantly acquiesced. “And on this Earth, ‘play me or trade me’ takes on a whole new meaning.” The others went back to their parts of the newspaper while Rembrandt glumly surveilled the room that was now his prison.
Arturo walked through the campus with the chairman of the science division, a friendly man who enjoyed bragging about his school’s recent accomplishments. Armed with yesterday’s research, Arturo was passing himself off as a professor visiting from a university in Bombay, India that was obscure enough that no one would be able to trace him easily. The chairman was eager to learn more about a school so far away, and Arturo satisfied his curiosity with enough vague generalities to reassure him that this school was far superior.
They stopped on the pleasant open quadrangle. With the students gone for the semester break, maintenance work was in full swing as groundskeepers and janitorial workers went about their business. Arturo noticed all of them were black. He asked casually, “So, is the school here a slave-holding institution?”
“Oh, certainly not,” the chairman answered firmly. Arturo nodded, reassured. He did a double take when the man said, “We don’t own them. They’re here on contract.”
“Contract? You mean like leased employees?”
“Exactly.” He nodded confidentially. “Except a lot cheaper.”
Arturo had intended to keep his opinions on the matter to himself, but his look of dismay gave him away. The chairman explained, “Oh, I know, it’s shocking to foreigners who see this for the first time. But really, it’s all quite regulated and supervised by state agencies. None of that ‘Uncle Tom,’ whipping people and chasing them over the ice flows cruelty anymore.”
Arturo’s disdain showed more than he wanted: “Isn’t owning another human being cruel enough?”
The chairman’s hackles went up on that, but then he smirked at his visitor. “With all due respect, Professor Arturo, it seems to me my ancestors kicked your ancestors’ butts so we wouldn’t have to put up with that kind of high-handed attitude from an outsider.”
Arturo nodded with a conciliatory smile. “Yes, indeed they did.” He thought for a moment, then asked neutrally, “Are you a slave owner?”
“No, of course not.”
“And yet you approve of it here?”
“It’s simply a matter of economics. Tuitions here are half what they are at schools in free states. We can afford to pay our faculty more, so we’ve got some of the best people in the world. And scholarships are nearly fifty percent higher than at schools of similar size in the Midwest and East. They can’t fill their classrooms, and we’ve got waiting lists a mile long. It’s just good business sense.”
“Yes, that little tax on tea seemed like good business sense, too,” Arturo said, getting a smile out of his host. He asked as innocuously as he could, “Do you have any...colored students here?”
The man shook his head. “No. There are plenty of fine schools out there for free negroes. We had some registered a few years ago as an experiment, but it was too disruptive. After all, students can’t get an optimal education if they’re afraid for their lives.” He smiled knowingly. “People are just more comfortable with their own kind.”
Arturo nodded. “I suppose that depends on how one defines one’s kind. Aren’t you afraid of what might happen someday when slavery is abolished?”
“Well, we’d probably have to dip into our endowment for a while to make ends meet.”
“That’s not what I mean. You have a long history at this school of using slave labor—regulated though it may be—and I would think there would be the potential for a tremendous backlash from the public, white and black. After all, institutions of higher learning are supposed to be enlightened, and ideally for progress. I would think you and your fellows would be working hard for positive change so all students, regardless of race or social standing, would be able to attend your school. You’re in a vulnerable position in a place like this. If society changes suddenly, you’ll quickly find yourself doing a lot of explaining and apologizing...I would imagine.”
The chairman reacted thoughtfully. “I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t a concern.” He flashed a hint of a smile as he said, “I guess we’ll just have to make sure that the coloreds don’t get organized enough to take matters into their own hands.”
It was Arturo’s turn to smile. “You know, I imagine my ancestors thought that very same thing about your ancestors.” He allowed a moment for the significance of his words to sink in, and then he thanked the chairman for the tour of the campus and excused himself.