Free Job: A Comedy of Justice by Robert A. Heinlein Page B

point, too, Alec. There is no Kaiser and there is no Tsar. The Grand Duke of Muscovy is a constitutional monarch and no longer claims to be suzerain over other Slavic states.”
    “Margrethe, we’re both saying the same thing. The world I grew up in is gone. I’m having to learn about a different world. Not a totally different world. Geography does not seem to have changed, and not all of history. The two worlds seem to be the same almost up to the beginning of the twentieth century. Call it eighteen-ninety. About a hundred years back something strange happened and the two worlds split apart…and about twelve days ago something equally strange happened to me and I got bounced into this world.” I smiled at her. “But I’m not sorry. Do you know why? Because you are in this world.”
    “Thank you. It is important to me that you are in it, too.”
    “Then you do believe me. Just as I have been forced to believe it. So much so that I’ve quit worrying about it. Just one thing really bothers me—What became of Alec Graham? Is he filling my place in my world? Or what?”
    She did not answer at once, and when she did, her answer did not seem responsive. “Alec, will you please take down your trousers?”
    “What did you say, Margrethe?”
    “Please. I am not making a joke and I am not trying to entice you. I must see something. Please lower your trousers.”
    “I don’t see—All right.” I shut up and did as she asked—not easy in evening dress. I had to take off my mess jacket, then my cummerbund, before I was peeled enough to let me slide the braces off my shoulders.
    Then, reluctantly, I started unbuttoning my fly. (Another shortcoming of this retarded world—no zippers. I did not appreciate zippers until I no longer had them.)
    I took a deep breath, then lowered my trousers a few inches. “Is that enough?”
    “A little more, please—and will you please turn your back to me?”
    I did as she asked. Then I felt her hands, gentle and not invasive, at my right rear. She lifted a shirttail and pulled down the top of my underwear pants on the right.
    A moment later she restored both garments. “That’s enough. Thank you.”
    I tucked in my shirttails and buttoned up my fly, reshouldered the braces and reached for the cummerbund. She said, “Just a moment, Alec.”
    “Eh? I thought you were through.”
    “I am. But there is no need to get back into those formal clothes; let me get out casual trousers for you. And shirt. Unless you are going back to the lounge?”
    “No. Not if you will stay.”
    “I will stay; we must talk.” Quickly she took out casual trousers and a sports shirt for me, laid them on the bed. “Excuse me, please.” She went into the bath.
    I don’t know whether she needed to use it or not, but she knew that I could change more comfortably in the stateroom than in that cramped shipboard bathroom.
    I changed and felt better. A cummerbund and a boiled shirt are better than a strait jacket but not much. She came out, at once hung up the clothes I had taken off, all but the shirt and collar. She removed studs and collar buttons from these, put them away, and put shirt and collar into my laundry bag. I wondered what Abigail would think if she could see these wifely attentions. Abigail did not believe in spoiling me—and did not.
    “What was that all about, Margrethe?”
    “I had to see something. Alec, you were wondering what had become of Alec Graham. I now know the answer.”
    “Yes?”
    “He’s right here. You are he.”
    At last I said, “That, just from looking at a few square inches on my behind? What did you find, Margrethe? The strawberry mark that identifies the missing heir?”
    “No, Alec. Your ‘Southern Cross.’”
    “My what?”
    “Please, Alec. I had hoped that it would restore your memory. I saw it the first night we—” She hesitated, then looked me square in the eye. “—made love. You turned on the light, then turned over on your belly to see what time it