Scherzo with Tyrannosaur by Michael Swanwick (Asimov’s SF, July 1999) opens with the supervisor of a time travel event called The Cretaceous Ball, which is held in the past, describing the family at one of the tables. The wealthy couple seated there have a daughter, Melusine, who is eyeing Hawkins, the young palaeontologist assigned to their table. They also have a son called Phillipe, who is wildly enthusiastic about dinosaurs.
Later on, and after the supervisor is called back to the future to deal with an incident (TSOs—Time Safety Officers—have busted a couple of waiters for trying to pass information from the future to the past), he returns and is accosted by Hawkins, who reports that Melusine has been hitting on him. Matthews begs to be relieved of his hosting duties, and the supervisor tells him to write a memo about the incident and avoid his tent for the rest of the evening.
The supervisor subsequently takes over as the family’s host, and he gives Phillipe a serrated dinosaur tooth just before an aging T. Rex called Satan is drawn to the enclosure in front of the protected dining area by a blood lure. Satan subsequently charges the armoured glass and the boy is hugely impressed. After the supervisor has finished talking to the boy about his job ambitions, he recovers a fallen napkin for Melusine and gives it to her—inside there is a promotional leaflet with a note saying to meet at a specific tent later—but signed not with the supervisor’s name but with Matthews’.
The final piece of the setup takes place shortly afterwards, when the supervisor sleeps with Melusine in Matthews’ dark tent; she is unaware of who she is with. Meanwhile the supervisor, thanks to a note from his future self, thinks about Matthews outside the compound—where he is about to be killed by Satan.
The denouement of the story unwinds the setup (spoiler), and this begins when the supervisor reads Hawkins’ memo later on. This reveals that Hawkins is the grown up Phillipe, and that he isn’t Melusine’s brother but her son, who was transported back in time so the grandparents could bring up him and Melusine as sister and brother. Then the supervisor realises that he is Phillipe’s father—that the boy is the result of the encounter he has just had with Melusine—and he sits down to send a note to himself in the past that will prevent his son’s death. However, before he can do that, a much older version of himself turns up and advises against his intended actions (saying, among other things, that the mysterious “Unchanging” will remove humanity’s ability to time travel). The older man finally hands the supervisor a version of the memo that simply tells of Hawkins’ death, and the story closes with the supervisor making a decision about which one to send.
This is a very cleverly plotted and inventive story but it is also a little unengaging. This is maybe because the supervisor is an unlikeable character, and it’s hard to care what his decision will be, and also, perhaps, that the story is pretty tightly packed and everything seems to rush by (which makes Swanwick’s stories the mirror image of much of today’s bloat).
Although it’s a good enough story it wouldn’t have been my choice for the 2000 Hugo Award for Best Short Story. 1
*** (Good). 4,550 words.
1. The story’s other award nominations can be seen on its ISFDB page. It seems to have been fighting it out with another Swanwick story, Ancient Engines (Asimov’s SF, February 1999).