take long, as I had made a belt of the gold, instead of a girdle, the first time I had had trouble getting it off and on to bathe; I had double-looped it and wired it together in front.
When I had my clothes off I wrapped the gold in them and tried to pretend that it all weighed only what clothes should. John Sutton glanced at the bundle but said nothing. He offered me a cigarette-he carried them strapped to his ankle. They were a brand I had never expected to see again.
I waved it but it didn't light. Then I let him light it for me. 'Now,' he said quietly, 'that we are alone, do you have anything you want to tell me? If I'm going to vouch for you to the club, I'm honor-bound to be sure, at the very least, that you won't make trouble.'
I took a puff. It felt raw in my throat. 'John, I won't make any trouble. That's the last thing on earth that I want.'
'Mmm... probably. Just `dizzy spells' then?'
I thought about it. It was an impossible situation. The man had a right to know. But he certainly would not believe the truth, at least I would not have in his shoes. But it would be worse if he did believe me; it would kick up the very hoorah that I did not want. I suppose that if I had been a real, honest, legitimate time traveler, engaged in scientific research, I would have sought publicity, brought along indisputable proof, and invited tests by scientists.
But I wasn't; I was a private and somewhat shady citizen, engaged in hanky-panky I didn't want to call attention to. I was simply looking for my Door into Summer, as quietly as possible.
'John, you wouldn't believe it if I told you.'
'Mmm... perhaps. Still, I saw a man fall out of empty sky but he didn't hit hard enough to hurt him. He's wearing funny clothes. He doesn't seem to know where he is or what day it is. Danny, I've read Charles Fort, the same as most people. But I never expected to meet a case. But, having met one, I don't expect the explanation to be as simple as a card trick. So?'
'John, something you said earlier-the way you phrased something-made me think you were a lawyer.'
'Yes, I am. Why?'
'Can I make a privileged communication?'
'Hmm-are you asking me to accept you as a client?'
'If you want to put it that way, yes. I'm probably going to need advice.'
'Shoot. Privileged.'
'Okay. I'm from the future. Time travel.'
He didn't say anything for several moments. We were lying stretched out in the sun. I was doing it to keep warm; May in Colorado is sunshiny but brisk. John Sutton seemed used to it and was simply lounging, chewing a pine needle.
'You're right,' he answered. 'I don't believe it. Let's stick to `dizzy spells.''
'I told you you wouldn't.'
He sighed. 'Let's say I don't want to. I don't want to believe in ghosts, either, or reincarnation, or any of this ESP magic. I like simple things that I can understand. I think most people do. So my first advice to you is to keep it a privileged communication. Don't spread it around.'
'That suits me.'
He rolled over. 'But I think it would be a good idea if we burned these clothes. I'll find you something to wear. Will they burn?'
'Uh, not very easily. They'll melt.'
'Better put your shoes back on. We wear shoes mostly, and those will get by. Anybody asks you questions about them, they're custom-made. Health shoes.'
'They are, both.'
'Okay.' He started to unroll my clothes before I could stop him. 'What the devil!'
It was too late, so I let him uncover it. 'Danny,' he said in a queer voice, 'is this stuff what it appears to be?'
'What does it appear to be?'
'Gold.'
'Where did you get it?'
'I bought it.'
He felt it, tried the dead softness of the stuff, sensuous as putty, then hefted it. 'Cripes! Danny... listen to me carefully. I'm going to ask you one question, and be damned careful how you answer it. Because I've got no use for a client who lies to me. I dump him. And I won't be a party to a felony. Did you come by this stuff legally?'
'Yes.'
'Maybe you haven't heard of the Gold Reserve Act of 1968?'
'I have. I came by it legally. I intend to sell it to the Denver Mint, for dollars.'
'Jeweler's license, maybe?'
'No. John, I told the simple truth, whether you believe me or not. Where I came from I bought that over the counter, legal as breathing. Now I want to turn it in for dollars at the earliest possible moment. I know that it is against the law to keep it. What can they do to me if I lay it on the counter at the mint and tell them to weigh it?'
'Nothing, in the long run... if you stick to your `dizzy spells.' But they can surely make your life miserable in the meantime.' He looked at it. 'I think you had better kick a little dirt over it.'
'Bury it?'
'You don't have to go that far. But if what you tell me is true, you found this stuff in the mountains. That's where prospectors usually find gold.'
'Well... whatever you say. I don't mind some little white lies, since it is legitimately mine anyhow.'
'But is it a lie? When did you first lay eyes on this gold? What was the earliest date when it was in your possession?'
I tried to think back. It was the same day I left Yuma, which was sometime in May, 2001. About two weeks ago.
Huh!
'Put that way, John... the earliest date on which I saw that gold... was today, May third, 1970.'
He nodded. 'So you found it in the mountains.'
The Suttons were staying over until Monday morning, so I stayed over. The other club members were all friendly but remarkably unnosy about my personal affairs, less so than any group I've ever been in. I've learned since that this constitutes standard good manners in a skin club, but at the time it made them the most discreet and most polite people I had ever met.
John and Jenny had their own cabin and I slept on a cot in the clubhouse dormitory. It was darn chilly. The next morning John gave me a shirt and a pair of blue jeans. My own clothes were wrapped around the gold in a bag in the trunk of his car-which itself was a Jaguar Imperator, all I needed to tell me that he was no cheap shyster. But I had known that by his manner.
I stayed overnight with them and by Tuesday I had a little money. I never laid eyes on the gold again, but in the course of the next few weeks John turned over to me its exact mint value as bullion minus the standard fees of licensed gold buyers. I know that he did not deal with the mint directly, as he always turned over to me vouchers from gold buyers. He did not deduct for his own services and he never offered to tell me the details.
I did not care. Once I had cash again, I got busy. That first Tuesday, 5 May, 1970, Jenny drove me around and I rented a small loft in the old commercial district. I equipped it with a drafting table, a workbench, an army cot, and darn little else; it already had 120, 240, gas, running water, and a toilet that stopped up easily. I didn't want any more and I had to watch every dime.
It was tedious and time-wasting to design by the old compass-and-T-square routine and I didn't have a minute to spare, so I built Drafting Dan before I rebuilt Flexible Frank. Only this time Flexible Frank became Protean Pete, the all-purpose automaton, so linked as to be able to do almost anything a man can do, provided its Thorsen tubes were properly instructed. I knew that Protean Pete would not stay that way; his descendants would evolve into a horde of specialized gadgets, but I wanted to make the claims as broad as possible.
Working models are not required for patents, merely drawings and descriptions. But I needed good models,
