What you do with an object depends on your training, background and inclination, with a factor for emergencies. Hand a pen to Bill Shakespeare and you get a sonnet or play. With Mozart, you get music to inspire. James Bond might stab you with it.
Whoever developed the technology to move between universes must have thought, “Wow! There must be a way to make a ton of money with this!” Their answer was trade, moving stuff from where it was cheap and selling it where it was expensive. When the business grows enough so the only thing holding you back from making more money is not enough manpower, you recruit people to run offices on both worlds.
I’m one of the recruits. I don’t think there’s anything special about me; I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and it’s worked out great. I deal mostly in luxury items with a high markup: second-hand junk in 1921 — pistols, swords, books, magazines, scrimshaw and the like — become antiques when shifted 80 or 90 years in the future. I can see myself doing this for a long time.
Except for the part about sitting around waiting for a saber-tooth tiger to show up.
The rest of the camp was quiet. There were eight of us: me and the two truck drivers, two animal handlers, and three cowboys I hired from the circus. They were doing a show at the Garden when I talked them into this expedition as a way to make some extra money. Parked next to me sat one of the trucks, and on the other side was the campfire, burning low now but still giving enough light to see fifty feet in front of the car to the cage with the baby mammoth. His parents were staked down beyond the other truck. The elephant handler told me the ropes would hold a small ocean liner.
Another noise sounded in the night, this time behind me. I turned to look, saw nothing but darkness until I started to imagine things. I turned back — and the tiger stood between me and the cage. There hadn’t been a sound from him. Sweat poured down my sides.
The saber-tooth was wildly over-muscled, like a bodybuilder who’d scored a tanker truck of steroids and had spent years bingeing. He reached out and batted at the cage, and the baby mammoth started bawling, wanting mama to come and get him. There was an answering trumpet from his parents and the tiger snarled like a chainsaw slicing through a trash can.
I was in an awkward position to shoot. I hunched forward and raised the rifle to my shoulder, hoping not to be seen. The barrel smacked into the steering wheel and the animal’s head snapped in my direction.
All hell let out for recess.
The saber-tooth screamed and started for me, going from zero to oh-my-god in one bound. I jerked the gun to my shoulder and let off both barrels. It felt like I’d been on the catching end of a Bruce Lee side kick. The world narrowed to a tunnel with the tiger in the center heading straight for me. The animal leaped, all snarling maw and claws and I decided I didn’t want to be there when he landed. In one spasmodic jerk, I went over the door and slammed into the ground with the grace of a bag of cement. The car sat high off the ground and I rolled under it. The car bounced on its springs and banged into me as it got a new occupant. I kept rolling, came up on all fours and sprinted for the cage, trying to suck air into my lungs.
By the time I was on the other side of the cage, everybody was in motion. Steve Bremmer, one of the cowboys, ran up in long johns, boots, hat and lever-action rifle, closely followed by Lathan Kohler wearing just boots, hat and pistol. Someone threw a bundle of sticks on the fire and we had light. The truckers came on the trot.
“Horses,” Bremmer said. The horses were adding to the racket, whinnying in panic.
“Got it,” said Kohler, the one without the long johns, and he was gone.
The mammoths’ trumpeting escalated the noise level several decibels. Bremmer yelled to the elephant wrangler. “Byrne, see to your animals!”
The Model T was a dim bulk in the shadow of the truck, its top bulging and the chassis creaking and swaying. Pieces of leather, canvas and foam rubber flew in the air and landed around us as the saber-tooth tore at the car, snarling all the while. Then he bounded free, tearing off the canvas top, and landed twenty feet away, still wrapped in black canvas. He shook his head and poked it out one side, like the world’s ugliest grandmother in a shawl.
I realized that my rifle and I had parted company a while back.
I looked into the face of this primeval killer, with his fierce daggered incisors, and was struck by his expression; this thing was dumb as a bag of hammers. That figured. He was a shark on land, an appetite strapped in muscle. Brains would have been as unnecessary as frosting on a filet mignon.
Bremmer raised his rifle and fired just as the tiger sprang. Bremmer went left and I went right. I kept going until I was on the far side of the car, got my feet tangled and went down, slid, and ended up on top of my rifle. I scrambled back to my feet and remembered the rifle was empty. I groped for the spare rounds in my pocket, broke the weapon open, dumped
