THE MERCHANT OF TIME

by Shannon L. Story

It was a fact well known to everyone in The Company, that two minutes after Muzzi Merki's shift started, the small, fat, bow-legged man with the egg-smooth head and caterpillar mustache, would always grumble to JRE-540-RG--his robot work-companion. "Is shift over, yet?"

To which JRE-540-RG would always reply in its same asthmatic wheeze, "No. It is--" . . . click whirr . . . "--7:02 a.m. Earth Time-base. You have--" . . . click, whirr . . . "--eleven hours, fifty-eight minutes, 29 seconds--" . . . click, whirr . . "--before shift--" . . . whirruph . . . "--is over."

His fellow human workers would always tease him, "So what, Muzzi? It ain't like you go anywhere." Then they would laugh.

It wasn't quite true. Muzzi did go out, but never with them, and never with Hanna Bannda. Hanna was his platonic roommate. He hated Hanna. What he loved was her money.

When at home, he would complain bitterly to her about the monotony and wish it was the beginning of another work day. She would shake her head and always reply, "Can't you just be happy with now, Muzzi?"

He never was.

*****

It was raining.

"They always program rain during the weekend," Muzzi griped to no one in particular as he exited The Company. It was untrue, but Muzzi liked to complain.

Instead of taking the Tube to the apartment complex across from The Company, Muzzi decided to take the Hover-Sled to the Shopping-Complex. He was especially bored this night. And his boredom made him hungry, like it always did.

The Hover-Sled was packed with workers getting off the first shift, a fact that made Muzzi extremely irritated.

They should be in their apartments, doing whatever strange and perverted things they did there, he thought, as he hunkered down against the seat, leaning hard into the railing so he wouldn't have to touch his fellow passengers.

Once under the hundred-acre, ninety-story ShopCom, the Hover-Sled disgorged its mostly happy, chattering, passengers into the terminal area. As usually, Muzzi muttered obscenities and pushed and shoved his way through the crowd to the Move-A-Mat dispenser. He paid his two SpHens and the round Move-A-Mat fell from the slot next to his feet.

As Muzzi stepped on the Move-A-Mat handlebar controls popped up. He punched the forward button and gripped the bars. The Mat's anti-grav unit purred and started to move. Muzzi suddenly became nauseated by the movement. He cursed for not remebering to take his anti-motion patches along. By the time he got to Level-36 where the smells of the seven hundred restaurants assulted his nostrils, he stopped thinking about food, and thought of the huge twenty-square mile landfill that rose two miles in the sky behind The Company.

He cursed as he made his way past the happy noise of the 80,000 workers in the ShopCom. Their happiness didn't help Muzzi's mood as he rode the Move-a-Mat from shop to shop, and floor to floor.

A loud speaker proclaimed, "To-The-Ends-Of-The-Universe. If it ain't here, it ain't in this universe." He glided past the store with a million and one different items from around the galaxy, the mustache on his face twitiching. This was where Hanna spent most of her time. Spending my spHens, he thought bitterly. That was untrue. She spent most of her spHens on Muzzi's rent, his food and his utilities.

Muzzi glided into the eighty-second floor, packed with beings from a hundred worlds. He wondered why anyone would want to waste his hard-earned spHens in such places: The Electronic Hugok Game, BlockBuster Sensi-a-Vids, Reel Time Reality and the Binko Races.

There were a thousand and ten other entertainment's to pass away the time. He hated the hype, the lights, the noise, and especially hated the way everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves with all the synthetic escapes.

"They're hypocrites," Muzzi muttered, "there's no joy here." The only reason he stayed on this Kaylon-forsaken planet was for the excellent pay and pension plan.

"Get your Lotto ticket here!" A metallic voice interrupted his muttering. Muzzi glared at the purple and yellow robot.

It was the Galaxy-Lotto--another thing that Hanna wasted her spHens on each week. The Lotto irked Muzzi the most. Why anyone would throw away spHens on a game of chance, when the odds of winning were 5 trillion to one, was ludicrous.

Each spHen Muzzi earned was fussed over with care for the day when he would finally be able to enjoy his earnings.

He was about to turn his Mat around and glide back to the terminal, when he heard the whisper.

"I've got what you want."

Muzzi ignored the voice, thinking it was some echo off the walls, then he heard it again.

"Muzzi, I got what you want." This time it seemed to whisper right in his ear.

Muzzi stopped the Mat and turned around in a 360. Where did that voice come from? How did it know his name?

"I got what you want," it said again in that sultry whisper.

Muzzi glanced at each face, human, non-human and robot. No one seemed to be the owner of the voice, for they passed him by as if he were invisible.

"Like blind Subji's going to spawn," he grumbled. Then he heard the voice again.

"I got what . . ."

He spied its location. The voice was coming from a large hologram of what looked like a crystal cave.

". . . you want."

Muzzi grunted with disappointment. So, he really wasn't being called. The voice was programmed to insert a name at random, hoping to come up with the right name at the right time. He pivoted the Move-A-Mat around and moved past a shop that offered erotica games. He heard it again.

"I got what you want Muzzi Merki. I really do."

Once again he stopped the Move-A-Mat and swung it around to face the holograph. How did the voice know his last name?

A woman stepped out of the cave. Her shimmering translucent hair covered her small, waif-thin body like a waterfall. He couldn't tell if she had anything on underneath the cascade of hair, but his imagination wondered, as she motioned to Muzzi with slim fingers, tipped with scarlet nails.

"How . . . how do you . . . you know my name?" Muzzi sputtered, as a strange stirring in his groin made him blush. "I know everything about you," she said with a slight, teasing smile that showed scarlet lips framing white, even teeth.

"It's a . . . a crime to pry in . . . in other people's databases, you know."

"I get my information from your heart, Muzzi," she smiled, "not from a computer."

"What does that mean?" Muzzi shot back, a little afraid of this strange woman\child who seemed to be staring into his soul with eyes that blazed a bizarre kind of green.

"I got what you want, Muzzi."

"You're a Sex-Seller," he muttered with disgust. He backed his Mat away and started to glide into the crowd.

"No, Muzzi, I'm not a seller of sex . . . but a merchant of time."

Muzzi maneuvered his Mat right into a girl and her boyfriend. "Hey, watch where you're going, you ugly little skueb," the boy growled, baring his fangs. The girl giggled beside him.

Muzzi gave the two a rude gesture and turned back to the child/woman. But she and the cave were gone. In its place was an exit to the public restrooms.

*****

For days, Muzzi wondered what the woman had meant by "a merchant of time." And for days, he was more irritable than usual.

"Muzzi, what's wrong with you?" Hanna would whine. But Muzzi say nothing. He would only hear the sound of the strange/beautiful woman/child.

". . . have what you want . . ."

How could she know what he wanted, when he didn't even know himself?

". . . from your heart . . ."

How could she know what was in his heart, when he didn't even know himself?

". . . a merchant of Time . . ."

What did she mean? What did she mean? What did she mean, by a merchant of time?

The voice and the mystery drove Muzzi back to the ShopCom again and again.

Where are you? Where are you? his mind would chant like some mantra. But she never answered.

***** For the hundredth time, Muzzi glanced up at the clock embedded into the far wall of the assembly line, and wished that it was 8:00 p.m. He sighed with boredom and lots of anger as he noticed the time: 5:59.

"Is it eight, yet?"

To which JRE-540-RG replied in the same asthmatic wheeze, "No. It is--" . . . click whirr . . . "--now 6:00 p.m. Earth Time-base. You have--" . . . click, whirr . . . "--one hour, 58 seconds--" . . . click, whirr . . "--before shift--" . . . click . . . "--is over.

Muzzi rolled his eyes upward, glanced toward the readout, glanced back at JRE-540-RG and give the robot a rude gesture with his thumb.

He didn't want to be here, he wanted to be at the ShopCom looking for Crystal. That's what he had named her: Crystal. For the cave, and her hair, and the look in her eyes.

*****

Every night he came to the ShopCom, bought a Move-a-Mat and went from shop to shop looking for the mysterious, Crystal. But now he had vowed that he would never come back here to the ShopCom, if he didn't find her this time.

A vow made more urgent, considering that just that morning, he had been hauled into Main Office and told if his quota did not increase, his accident rate decline, he would be shipped out, and forfeit his pension bonus.

"I have what you most desire."

Muzzi was just about to ignore the sound, thinking it was his imagination.

"I have what you most desire." This time it seemed to whisper right in his ear.

Muzzi stopped so suddenly the anti-grav unit could barely keep him on the Mat.

"I have what you most desire," the sensuous voice said again.

Muzzi glanced at each face: human, non-human or robot. He heard it again.

"I have what you . . ."

And then he heard it coming from what looked like a crystal castle.

". . . most desire. . ."

Muzzi grunted with disappointment. Not a cave but a castle. Not want, but desire. Different place, different words. He turned and was about to leave when he heard the voice again.

". . . for I am the merchant of time, Muzzi Merki."

It's her! His mind raced, wondering what he should do, what he should say. He realized with sudden shame that his loins were reacting to his remembered vision of her.

Muzzi stepped off the Mat and waddled to the door of the castle and waited for the woman/child to come out. She never did. After a minute of gnawing on his lower lip, he slowly, reluctantly, went in.

The room was semi-dark and much smaller than he expected. In the back of the room a slight breeze suddenly tickled gauzy red curtains. Bells chimed and the air smelled of oranges and stale sweat.

In the middle of the room stood a blue metal table and two yellow chairs. On the table was a white candle, its flame sputtering in the breeze. Beside it was a two-foot translucent crystal.

"Anyone here?" he whispered. It sounded like a shout in the confines of the small room.

From behind the curtain a shape materialized as if from thin air. Muzzi licked dry lips in anticipation. Slowly, an old woman emerged with translucent hair covering her small, waif-thin body. She motioned to Muzzi with bony fingers, tipped with blood-red nails. The fire in his loins fizzled as the hag came closer. From under the cascade of hair he could glimpse her naked body: Yellow skin, wrinkled like a zwizi fruit gone bad; flaccid breasts hanging almost to the paunch of her over-size belly.

"Who . . . who are you? Where is the . . . the other one?" Muzzi said with irritation and a hint of fear.

"You mean her?" the crone said, pointing a knobby finger to the door behind him.

Muzzi turned and saw the strange/beautiful woman/child.

"This hologram I made, so ones like you would come in, and not just pass me by?" the hologram said with a slight, teasing smile that showed scarlet lips framing white, even teeth.

Muzzi turned back to the old woman, embarrassment turning his face scarlet.

"Fa-- false advertising is a . . . a crime."

"False advertising?" the old woman cackled. "But that is me . . . when I was young."

Muzzi stared at the old woman, trying to see any resemblance to the woman/child in this old hag's face. There was only one . . . her eyes.

"But enough about me. What do you want, Muzzi Merki?"

"How . . . how do you know my name?"

"Is that all you want from me? Most want more," she said with a wheezing laugh.

Muzzi started backing toward the door. This wasn't what he expected, or what he wanted. Her words stopped him in his tracks.

"What do you want, Muzzi Merki?" Her bizarre green eyes looked right into his soul.

"I . . . don't want anything."

"Everyone wants something: Fame, fortune, a lover," there was a pause, "Happiness?"

Muzzi glanced at the old woman, then to the flickering flame of the candle. The crystal stood beside it, shimmering with a thousand rainbows within its depths. The scent of orange was overpowering.

"Who . . . who are you?" Muzzi looked into those green eyes.

"I am a merchant of time. What is your heart's desire? I will tell you."

The crone lifted a bony finger at him and shook it like a stick at a yapping furfim. "I am a merchant of time. Don't you want to know your future, Muzzi Merki?"

His mouth suddenly felt like sand, his heart began to thud in his chest. To know his future? He turned and ran, but her words followed him out the door and into his soul.

"Don't you want to know if you will ever be happy, Muzzi Merki?"

*****

"Muzzi, what's wrong with you?" Hanna whined. "Everyone is talking about you on second shift. It ain't like you to be late and careless at work."

Hanna blinked, then stared at his bandaged hand. "It's the second time this week you had to come to the infirmary and let me bandage something."

Muzzi said nothing as he stared at his plate and gulped down his Chezi-Dezi. She continued to stare at him.

"Well, Muzzi?"

Muzzi looked up from his plate and glared at Hanna, who always reminded him of a trapped liziturb in some scientist's maze: small watery blue eyes darting around looking for escape, fuzzy orange hair that seemed to defy gravity . . . and that pitiful whine.

The only reason he kept her around was the fact that it was her income that he lived on.

"Isn't there something at the Ends of the Universe you want to buy? Or how about Galaxy-Lotto?" He sneered. "I hear its up to 186,949,383 spHens. Don't you want to go out and add to the total?"

Hanna took the hint and left Muzzi to his last bite of dinner . . . and the chant in his mind.

"Don't you want to know your future?"

"Don't you want to know?"

"Don't you?"

The voice and the mystery drove Muzzi back to the ShopCom.

*****

Muzzi glided into the eighty-second floor. He hated the hype, the lights, the noise, and especially hated the way everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. "Hypocrites," Muzzi grumbled, "there's no--."

"I knew you would be back," her voice whispered in his ear. He turned and saw the holograph of the woman/child standing at the entrance to the crystal cave.

"They always come back," she said with a slight, sad smile.

*****

The room was semi-dark and much smaller than he remembered it. In the back of the room a slight breeze teased at gauzy blue curtains. Bells chimed, and the air smelled of stale grease and lemons. In the middle of the room stood a purple metal table and two red chairs. On the table was another lit candle--now black--and the same large crystal.

"Anyone here?" he whispered. His words sounded too loud the confines of the room.

From behind the curtain her shape emerged. Muzzi licked dry lips in anticipation. Slowly, the old woman came into view and motioned to Muzzi to sit. He didn't.

"I am a merchant of time. What is your heart's desire? I will tell you."

"I . . . I want to know when I'll be happy," Muzzi sputtered like JRE-540-RG.

She moved to a chair and sat, and demanded he sit in the other. She then turned her attention to the crystal in front of her. Muzzi moved to the chair and reluctantly sat.

This is crazy, his mind argued. The old gizzi doesn't know the future any more than you do.

"I see your past," she said, raising an eyebrow. She glanced at him from over the crystal with a look of slight disbelief. She grunted, and went back to her crystal-gazing.

What did she know about my past? Muzzi thought with alarm. I've never told anyone about my past, and I've covered my tracks well. Calm down, she doesn't know anything, he chastised.

"Those on Gambler's Den still hunt you," she said.

"How do you kn--" Reeling with shock, Muzzi shut up, realizing that he was just about to confess to an embezzlement years ago.

"They still hunt, but they will never find." She then sighed. With relief or regret, Muzzi didn't know. Her revelation alarmed Muzzi. He started to rise, but couldn't get up to run. It was as if an anit-grav unit had run amok, keeping him stuck to the chair.

The old woman's eyes stared deep into the shimmering crystal, ignoring him. Closing her eyes, her face became slack with deep meditation.

Her body swayed and her breasts moved like pendulums as she started to hum a mindless tune. For many minutes, she hummed and swayed. Muzzi wondered if she had forgotten him.

"I see!"

Her voice made him jump. He almost toppled the candle over, but grabbed it before it could fall. Still the hag swayed and hummed.

"See what?" Muzzi whispered with irritation. He watched the crone's features to see if there was any hint of joy . . . or dread. She showed him nothing.

"What do you see?" What? What! his mind cried.

"I see--"

Muzzi leaned forward. "Happiness? What about fortune? Will I be rich some day?" Muzzi interrupted in a rush.

"You will have money. Much money. More than you ever dreamed," she whispered, still in a deep meditative state.

Suddenly, her eyes popped open and she reached out her gnarled palm to him.

"So, that'll be 145,045 spHens."

*****

Muzzi argued with the old hag for twenty minutes about the ridiculously high price.

"Why that's everything I've got in my savings account," he yelled at her.

In the end he paid--after she threatened to contact ShopCom Patrol, and even Gambler's Den. As he muttered curses, she reminded, "What do a few spHens matter when you'll be rich soon?"

*****

"What do a few spHens matter . . . they still hunt you . . . when you'll be rich soon . . . but they will never find." The words the old crone had spoken tumbled around in Muzzi's head like dice in a game of Kinjunja.

"I better get rich," he muttered, thinking about the transfer of SpHens he made from a SpHelBanc Credit Terminal she had retrieved from under the table and shoved in his face.

The thought of all those spHens--now gone--made his bowels grumble. The old hag had left his savings account almost dry. Only a month's worth of spHens was all that showed for five years labor on this Kaylon-forsaken planet, and from his long-ago thievery on Gambler's Den. He was going to have to raise Hanna's rent again.

"You're a fool. That's what you are, Muzzi," he chanted. "A fool. A fool. A fool."

Yammering to himself, Muzzi glided past, Ends-Of-The-Universe, past Hanna who was giggling and flirting with a handsome ShopCom patron, and past people who moved out of his way, shaking their heads at him in pity.

"Why did you give her the money? She doesn't know the future." he muttered.

But she knew the past, his mind argued.

He let the Move-A-Mat find its own path down to the Hover-Sled Terminals. If she knows the past, she must know the future too, he mused. She must. Must!

By the time the Move-A-Mat had arrived at the Hover-Slid Terminals he had convinced himself that her perdictions were true.

I'll be rich beyond my wildest dreams, he thought gleefully. But how would he become rich? She had said soon. He tried to remember if he had any old relatives who were about to pop off. There were none that he knew of. And the others he realized were either rock poor or in jail.

So, how? His mind kept repeating.

"Only a few more minutes left, till the drawing! Don't miss your opportunity to have everything you ever wanted!"

The Galaxy-Lotto robot was shouting to all who passed. Muzzi grimaced and passed the long line of humans, non-humans and robots waiting to buy tickets.

Then he stopped the Move-A-Mat, turned around and stared at the purple and yellow robot. Could it be?

"That's it. The Lotto!"

*****

He barely made the deadline, but even when the minutes turned to seconds, he didn't panic. It was in the stars, said the Merchant of Time. And with two seconds to spare, he clutched his winning ticket.

"You will have money. Much money. More than you ever dreamed." He remembered her every word,

At the Hover-Sled Terminal, he waited for the winning ticket to be announced. Others around him waited also. Everyone seemed to have a ticket.

Good, thought Muzzi, more spHens for me. He smiled gleefully as he watched the thousands of beings in the terminal with their tickets out.

As the Lotto Robot called out the numbers, he glanced at those around him, watched as they matched--or disqualifed--each number that the robot ticked off.

"Six . . . four . . . five . . . thirty-four . . . fifty-nine . . . three . . . ninety-eight . . . thirty-six . . . forty-two . . . eighty-nine--"

Muzzi felt smug as he watched the numbers on his ticket match one-by-one, and listened to the groans and complaints as those around him realized that--once again--they weren't the winners.

Though he knew he was going to win, his heart paused each time the robot announced a number. And started again as each number matched.

". . . sixty-five. And the last number is--"

Muzzi laughed for the first time in his life.

"Seventy."

He stared for a long moment at the last number on his ticket, then almost passed out.

Seventy-one. The number that stared back at him was seventy-one.

Not seventy.

Not seventy.

Not seventy!

Muzzi was blind with rage. His fat little face turned purple and his eyes bugged out more than usual. Foam started to form around his caterpillar mustache.

The old hag had cheated him. Cheated him out of his hard earned spHens and was probably laughing at him right now.

He started to scream and wave his arms. Those around him moved back. No doubt fearing that another lotto-freak was going off the deep dip because he lost one too many times.

Muzzi didn't care what they thought. He would get revenge. He'd find her and tear out those blood-red nails . . . tear out those strange green eyes . . . tear out--

*****

"Are we ready for a bath, Muzzi?" The voice said with an asthmatic whine. "Such a dirty, dirty boy we are today."

"So that's him?" a male's voice said with contempt.

"Yea. Can you imagine? A run-away Hover-Sled hitting him? He gets a settlement of a billion spHens, and now he'll be on life-support until the spHens run out."

"Well, at least that means we are going to be well taken care of," the voice said with a laugh.

"Yea, who would of thought I'd be made the executrix of his estate," said Hanna as she dropped Muzzi's leg back on the medi-bed.

-30-

© 1991 Shannon L. Story