Strange Highways

The father of space travel?"
     "Huh? No, the movie director."
     "Not on my world."
     "On your world, Spielberg is the father of space travel?"
     "He invented frozen yogurt too."
     "Really?"
     "And antigravity boots and microwave popcorn. He's the richest man in history."
     "I see."
     "And the architect of world peace," Bruno said reverently.
     I sat down as the implications of what he had told me began to work their way through my thick head. "Do you mean that weird characters from a thousand different worlds are going to be popping up around me all the time?"
     "Not really," he said. "First of all, there just isn't that much reason to visit your probability - or any other, for that matter. There are too many alternate realities for cross-time traffic to get heavy in any one of them. Unless it's such a weird Earth as to be a tourist area. But your Earth looks bland and ordinary, judging from this apartment."
     I ignored that and said, "But suppose I had been walking down the street when you popped through? That's going to cause some excitement when it happens!"
     "Funny thing about that," Bruno said. "When one of us first pops through, not even you can see us. We gradually come into your perception, like someone seen out of the corner of your eye, and it doesn't look magical at all."
     I made him go and get me more Scotch. After a third of that, I felt more cheerful. "You said you were a cop."
     "Did I?"
     "Just as much. You said this Stone is wanted for some crime or other. Unless you're an average citizen with more than his share of humanitarianism, then you're a cop."
     He took a curious-looking silver circle out of his overcoat pocket and held it up: PROBABILITY POLICE. When he ran his thumb down its surface, the words disappeared under a picture of him. "Now, I really must be going. Graham Stone is too dangerous a man to be permitted freedom here."
     Beside me were the controls for the CD player. I selected a disc and turned up the volume while he rose and pulled on his absurd hat. When the Butterfield Blues Band blared in at top volume, I put a slug in the couch beside him, incidentally tearing a hole through his overcoat.
     He sat down.
     I lowered the volume.
     "What do you want?" he asked. I had to admit that he was cool about it. He didn't even check out his coat to see how close the round had actually been.
     I already had my angle. "You're going to need help. I know this urban dump. You don't."
     "I have my own devices," he said.
     "Devices? You're not Sherlock Holmes in Victorian England, buster. This is America in the nineties, the big city - they eat bears like you for breakfast."
     He looked worried. "I'm not particularly familiar with this reality-"
     "So you need me," I said, keeping the Colt aimed in his general direction.
     "Go on," he said gruffly. If he could have gotten to me, I'm sure he would have shown me how fast those blocky fists could move.
     "It just so happens that I'm a private investigator. I never have much liked the badge-carrying kind of police - like you. But I'm never against working with them if there's a profit in it."
     He seemed about to reject the proposal, then paused to give it some thought. "How much?"
     "Let's say two thousand for the whole caper."
     "Two thousand dollars."
     "Or two pair of Spielberg gravity boots, if you've got 'em."
     He shook his head. "Can't introduce revolutionary technology across the probability lines. Bad things happen."
     "Like what?"
     "Little girls spontaneously combusting in New Jersey."
     "Don't play me for a fool."
     "I'm serious." He looked serious, all right-bearishly dour, bearishly grim. "The effects are unpredictable and often weird. The universe is a mysterious place, you know."
     "I hadn't noticed. So do we have a deal for two thousand bucks?"
     "You use the gun well," he said. "Okay. Agreed."
     He had accepted the figure too smoothly. "Better make that three thousand," I said.
     He grinned. "Agreed."
     I realized that money meant nothing to him - not the money of this probability line. I could have asked for anything. But I could not squeeze more out of him. It would be a matter of principle