Nelson S. Bond

“ Tell me it's not a—a time-machine?"
Horsesense Hank grinned and tugged at a straggling wisp of hair.
"Wa-a-all, I reckon I could tell you that, Jim, but it wouldn't be whut you mought call the truth. 'Cause that's jest whut it is. The machine that's gonna carry us back into the past to prove my theories!"
I said, "It's a time-machine," weakly. "A—a time-machine," I said—and then the double-take struck me. "Us!" I howled. "Us! Into the past? Oh, no! Gangway, pal—"
Hank grabbed me and held on tight. ”

“ Otherwise we couldn't meet. Because one of us has no real existence. Even granting that at any given point in the past an infinitude of things could have happened, the fact remains that only one thing did happen! So one of us is alive, and the other has no real existence!"
But Hank shook his head slowly and sadly.
"Nope, Jim! I'm sorry, but you're wrong again. It don't work out that way. From the beginning o' Time I reckon they musta been billions o' different crooshul situations—an' each one o' them has made way to another possible future, each one as true an' valid as the rest. ”

“ It ain't right to go messin' around in things like this when you can't control 'em perfect. It just ain't according to Hoyle to do it."
"But if it contributes to science—" I said.
"It don't, Jim. It's all puffectly clear an' logical to me, now. You see, it wouldn't do a man no good to go gallivantin' off into the past, because all he'd do is start a new chain of could-bes. An' it don't do no good for a man to slide sideways through Time, because whut he learns ain't of no consequence to him in his Time, an' just disturbs the folks he meets. ”

“ But I'm not the kind of guy who exists on brain-food alone. I've got a hollow, pear-shaped bulb a few inches south of my diaphragm, and regularly, about six times a day, this aforesaid vacancy declares itself ready, willing and able to take care of a few pecks of assorted groceries.
A mild attack of looseness around the belt reminded me that this was one of those times. I said, "Talking about space, Hank, that's what I've got the most of in my stomach. ”

“ Logic or no logic, Hank, this is one time I will not believe my own eyes! These other 'usses' don't exist. Can't exist. Why, it violates the Law of Conservation of Matter! The same thing can't exist two places at the same time—"
"Sure it can't," agreed Hank impatiently. "But I'm tryin' to tell you, this ain't the same Time! This here is a diff'rent world entirely. This is one world from an infinite number o' possibilities arisin' out o' the past. That other Jim Blakeson looks like you, Jim. An'—" Hank studied him speculatively. ”

“ Hank said woefully, "There's millions of 'em, mebbe billions. Mebbe trillions; I dunno. I was just 'sperimentin', tryin' to find which course this here machine took—if any—so I'd know—"
Helen's eyes were deep with surmise. She said, "Do you mean, Hank, that any of these different existences might have been the history of the United States if other things had happened?"
"Might have been," agreed Hank, "and is. You gotta get that clear in your minds. These places is just as real to the people in 'em as our world is to us. ”

“ Hank's eyes clouded. "There could be—"
I laughed at him. "For once, pal, you're caught in a middle. Your theory is just as good as Jamieson's, but no better. You can't prove it. So how about a couple rounds of checkers before we turn in?"
Hank temporarily forgot whatever new conjecture had occurred to him. He looked a bit petulant as he aimed a shot of liquid brown at the distant bronze jug.
"Now, looky here, Jim—you don't deny things would be a heap diff'rent if you an' me'd never met, an' I'd stayed home on my turnip farm?" ”

“ Helen said, "I—I'm not exactly sure, but I thought it was the daVinci Spaceport—"
"That's whut I thought, too," said Hank. "I reckon there's your answer, Jim. Back there in the Middle Ages, one day old Leonardo musa blew his nose or stubbed his toe or done somethin' he didn't do in our hist'ry—an' as a result, he succeeded in doin' whut he never done in our time, though he spent half his life atryin' to. He invented aircraft.
"Which give man a flyin' start o' four hundred years or so over where he is in our universe. ”

“ Solved a problem that has eluded men of genius for centuries, and you're worried about one minor detail!"
"Well, it ain't whut you might call minor, Jim—"
"Hank, you never had a day's mechanical training in your life. I know that. So tell me—how on earth could you know how to make this machine?" ”

“ I interrupted flatly. "Hank, this is going too far! You admit we've been in the United States—all right, make it the North American continent if you want to!—all along. But we've seen men of a dozen different races, heard a dozen tongues spoken—"
Hank scratched his head.
"Well, now, Jim, I guess you know I'm not what you mought call a scholar. But I done read up a leetle bit about hist'ry. An' it 'pears to me like all them things we seen could o' happened, if things had tooken jest the littlest bit of shift somewheres in the past. ”

“ Hank said, "Now, Helen, don't git in there yet! It ain't quite finished, an'—"
She ignored him with magnificent aplomb. "I'm glad one of us has good common-sense," she said. "If you're going to be an inventor, someone has to keep an eye on you to make sure your inventions are practical.
"Just as I thought! These cushions aren't at all comfortable. They're not wide enough, either. Get in here, Jim. Beside me—that's right! And you, too, Hank. ”

“ Hank visioned forgiveness in her aroused interest. He sprang to her side, pointed at the various dials and gadgets. "This takes you to the past, so you can watch history being made. Or into the future—"
Helen, being a woman, had no time for nonsense like that. She got right down to fundamentals. "It's not streamlined," she said. "I don't like the color, and the dashboard isn't pretty. Where's the cigarette-lighter? ”

“ They say English is the most elastic of all languages, but even it lacks the words to describe some things. Like this one.
But I'll take a running start and see what happens. It was a machine. It was made of metal and glass and gadgets and doolollies and sugar and spice and everything nice; that's what little girls are made of! It was shaped something like the tonneau of a 1931 model Packard, and somewhat more like a big, old-fashioned bathtub with a hood. ”

“ And for the final time our two ships were hovering in the gray mists which are above Time's passageways, and our two pilots were preparing for the move which they seemed to believe would solve our difficulty. And Hank Number 2 said, "You've got it straight, now, Hank! You sit perfectly still. I'll guide my machine into yours, an' at the moment of impact, you and I will both press our temporal landin' studs—right?"
"Right!" said our Hank. "I guess it's the oney way to do it, huh?" ”

“ Hank said, "Jim—Helen—whut I got to say ain't nice. From the minute we started this trip, I been worryin' about one thing. The other 'me' which we met back there in the room realized it, too, an' he was also worried. You see, like Jim oughta realize atter he couldn't grab aholt o' that likker bottle—we can't eat or drink while we're travelin' in this crate!"
"We can't—!" I realized, suddenly and completely, that he was right. That was one of the things he had tried to make clear. We had no real existence to these other worlds, nor they to us. ”

“ Both of them were 'scientific pioneers'. They had a native, inborn ability to create, seemingly at a moment's notice, gadgets of such scientific scope that no other man would have believed them possible. ”

“ And Hank, a haunted look in his eyes, said, "Sorry, Jim—but that's another o' the drawbacks to this time-travel business. You c'n see things an' hear 'em and smell 'em, but you can't tetch 'em. Because as fur's you're concerned, they ain't, an' as fur's they're concerned, you don't exist!"
Helen MacDowell stared at him. ”

“ He liked nothing more than to fling his physical and mental weight around. Because he had an exaggerated amount of the first, and an exaggerated opinion of the second, he riled Hank Cleaver worse than boils on the postscript.
"It ain't jest whut he says, Jim," Hank groused one night. "That don't matter. There's jest two opinions: right and wrong, logical an' illogical. As a human bein', it's his priv'lege to think as screwy as he wants. But, dag-gone, it's the way he says things! ”

“ My double had jerked a bottle of rye from the bedroom medicine cabinet, and was feverishly engaged in warding off pneumonia for the next ten years. "—an' I must admit he acts like you, too—but he ain't you. He's you like you woulda been under a different set of coordinates." ”

“ Then Hank disengaged Helen gently and moved to the side of his machine. He stared at it long and mournfully—then picked up a screwdriver.
"I promised me," he said, "I'd dismantle this here thing. An' I'm agonna do it, too, afore my good intentions weaken. It's too dangerous f'r a man to have around. Seein' other time-possibilities, experiencin' twin memories—" He stopped suddenly, stared at us. "Twin memories: the ideers o' two minds! I wonder—"
"Wonder what?"
"Them mental cases in hospitals, Jim. You know—them what do you call 'ems?—schizophrenics? Fellers with split personalities. ”

“ Hank said, "Now, ca'm down, Jim. Me'n me figgered this all out, an' it's the oney way we can get back to normal. You see, we an' ourselves in the other ship is almost identical. Within five minutes or so of each other we got the same brains, mem'ries an' bodies.
"It's absolutely impossible for us here in this car to ever get back to exactly the sitchyation we left. ”