Read Online Tales of Old Earth by Michael Swanwick - Free Book Online Page A

later tonight, and received a day ago, he was eaten alive by an old bull rex rendered irritable by a painful brain tumor. It was an ugly way to go. I didn’t want to have to hear it. I did my best to not think about it.
    Credit where credit is due—Melusine practically set the tent ablaze. So I was using her. So what? It was far from the worst of my crimes. It wasn’t as if she loved Hawkins, or even knew him for that matter. She was just a spoiled little rich-bitch adventuress looking for a mental souvenir. One more notch on her diaphragm case. I know her type well. They’re one of the perks of the business.
    There was a freshly prepared triceratops skull by the head of the bed. It gleamed faintly, a pale, indistinct shape in the darkness. When Melusine came, she grabbed one of its horns so tightly the skull rattled against the floorboards.
    Afterwards, she left, happily reeking of bone fixative and me. We’d each had our little thrill. I hadn’t spoken a word during any of it, and she hadn’t even noticed.
    T. rex wasn’t much of a predator. But then, it didn’t take much skill to kill a man. Too slow to run, and too big to hide—we make perfect prey for a tyrannosaur.
    When Hawkins’ remains were found, the whole camp turned out in an uproar. I walked through it all on autopilot, perfunctorily giving orders to have Satan shot, to have the remains sent back uptime, to have the paperwork sent to my office. Then I gathered everybody together and gave them the Paradox Lecture. Nobody was to talk about what had just happened. Those who did would be summarily fired. Legal action would follow. Dire consequences. Penalties. Fines.
    And so on.
    It was two AM when I finally got back to my office, to write the day’s operational report.
    Hawkins’s memo was there, waiting for me. I’d forgotten about that. I debated putting off reading it until tomorrow. But then I figured I was feeling as bad now as I was ever going to. Might as well get it over with.
    I turned on the glow-pad. Hawkins’ pale face appeared on the screen. Stiffly, as if he were confessing a crime, he said, “My folks didn’t want me to become a scientist. I was supposed to stay home and manage the family money. Stay home and let my mind rot.” His face twisted with private memories. “So that’s the first thing you have to know—Donald Hawkins isn’t my real name.
    â€œMy mother was kind of wild when she was young. I don’t think she knew who my father was. So when she had me, it was hushed up. I was raised by my grandparents. They were getting a little old for child-rearing, so they shipped me back-time to when they were younger, and raised me alongside my mother. I was fifteen before I learned she wasn’t really my sister.
    â€œMy real name is Philippe de Cherville. I swapped table assignments so I could meet my younger self. But then Melusine—my mother—started hitting on me. So I guess you can understand now—” he laughed embarrassedly—”why I didn’t want to go the Oedipus route.”
    The pad flicked off, and then immediately back on again. He’d had an afterthought. “Oh yeah, I wanted to say … the things you said to me today—when I was young—the encouragement. And the tooth. Well, they meant a lot to me. So, uh … thanks.”
    It flicked off.
    I put my head in my hands. Everything was throbbing, as if all the universe were contained within an infected tooth. Or maybe the brain tumor of a sick old dinosaur. I’m not stupid. I saw the implications immediately.
    The kid—Philippe—was my son.
    Hawkins was my son.
    I hadn’t even known I had a son, and now he was dead.
    A bleak, blank time later, I set to work drawing time lines in the holographic workspace above my desk. A simple double-loop for Hawkins/Philippe. A rather more complex figure for myself. Then I factored in the TSOs, the