"Hello?"
"Hello!"
"Depends on when it is. When is it, Poppy?"
"Well, it's the year 3025 and it's, uh, kind of 1630 too. But I meant, can I ask you...?"
"For assistance in 2013? Sure. I'm just gardening. Where are you and what are you doing?"
"I'm interviewing crew applicants for a shipping firm. They sent me to Tortuga --lots of sailors used to long journeys in the 1600s."
"Which firm?"
"The Pleiades-Bombay Navigation Company. You've never heard of it."
"Hmmm. Interstellar. Do they build the hulls of their ships by solar-lens refraction super-heating spinning iron asteroids just outside the orbit of Mercury --like clay on a potter's wheel-- then magnetically move them into the planet's shadow to cool?"
"How...how could you know?"
"Lucky guess. What's your applicant like?"
"He's really young, Geo. Clean. Too clean. Says he's a pirate but the scarf on his head says "BSA". He claims it means 'Buccaneer Ship Associaton'."
"Fleur de lis?"
"Uh huh."
"'Boy Scouts of America', Poppy. Is he wearing tennis shoes?"
"Don't know."
"Pretend to drop your pen, pick it up and look under the table. What do you see?"
"Gosh! Tennis shoes! They didn't have tennis shoes in 1630, did they?"
"No, Poppy, nor should they in 3025 --not with him in them. You must not recruit him."
"Another time traveler?"
"I can't comment on that, but be kind. Tell him to take the Einstein-Rosen Bridge home. There's a life waiting for him there that he really shouldn't miss."
Fascinating. I loved the idea of telling the boy scout that he shouldn't miss out on his life.
ReplyDeleteAnd admission to Norma's Spa seems very reasonably priced.
Lucky guess....lol. And even luckier to remember it after 50 years!
ReplyDeleteWe are ALL time travellers living a little in the past, a little in the present and most hopefully in the future.
ReplyDeleteI like Normas Spa....I like the simple things.
This sounds like it would make a great sci-fi story :)
ReplyDeleteThat looks like a perfect summer spa to me - - -
ReplyDeletebut I have serious doubts about the applicant on the ship. The Better Business Bureau has some disturbing complaints on file concerning the Buccaneer Ship Association.....
OK, I am totally in. Where do I sign up?
ReplyDeleteI love the "Daughter-photo"! And of course the Spa. Well - job-seaking doesn't seem easy - the applicant will be disappointed...
ReplyDeleteInteresting tale!
ReplyDeleteI would love to hear a story about the Pleiades-Bombay Navigation Company! Too good!
ReplyDeleteEC-- I frequent only the best spas and Norma's tops the list, comprises the whole of it, in fact.
ReplyDeleteHelena-- Lucky indeed!
Delores-- If I lived a bit more in the past, would I remember where I put things?
Keith-- Thanks, you're welcome to the idea. I love sci-fi!
Jon-- I bet a lot of buccaneers dodged BBB complaints by becoming realtors.
C. Consigliere-- Thanks for comment! Sign up at blue "members" box, like I did --and encourage others to do-- at your excellent blog.
Britta-- Most kind! I assure you, with unimpeachable authority, the applicant --now in his mid-60s-- never regretted going home.
Sage-- Thanks! High marks from a true adventurer.
Michelle-- I have long-wished to pilot an interstellar freighter and am still in training for it.
Norma's spa, ah, the place to be!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this post!
Thank you!
Margie-- Thank you. Indeed, the spa was worth coming back to this century for.
ReplyDelete