“When I had that strange feeling that someone was behind me, and when I whirled to see The Alien standing there in the room, I do not presume to say that I was not scared. I was. I was very much scared. I had seen The Alien when it was five or six hundred feet tall - but that had been from afar. Now it was only eleven or twelve feet tall, but was standing right before me. But my sacredness was only momentary, for something seemed to enter and calm my mind.
“Then, although there was no audible sound, I became aware of the thought: ‘I know that you would like to learn things about myself, things which those others - your scientists - would have liked to know.’
“This was mental telepathy! I had often used the theory in my stories, but never had I dreamed that I would experience such a medium of thought in real fact. But here it was.
“ ‘Those others, your scientists,’ came the next thought, ‘would never have believed nor even understood my story, even if their minds were of the type to receive my thoughts, which they are not.’ And then I began to feel a strain upon my mind, and knew that I could not stand much more of it.
“Then came the thought that he would relate his story through my subconscious mind if I had some means of recording it in my own language. For an instant I hesitated; then I realised that time was fleeing and never again would I have such an opportunity as this. I went to my desk, where only that morning I had been working on a manuscript. There was paper and ink in plenty.
“My last impression was of some force seeming to spread over my mind; then a terrific dizziness, and the ceiling seemed to crash upon me.
“No time at all had seemed to elapse, when my mind regained its normal faculties; but before me on the desk was a pile of manuscript paper closely written in my own longhand. And - what many persons will find it hard to believe - standing upon that pile of written paper upon my desk top was The Alien - now scarcely two inches in height - and steadily and surely diminishing! In utter fascination I watched the transformation that was taking place before my eyes - watched until The Alien had become entirely invisible. Had descended down into the topmost sheet of paper there on my desk …
“Now I realise that the foregoing document and my explanation of it will be received in many ways. I have waited a full year before making it public. Accept it now as fiction if you wish. There may be some few who will see the truth of it, or at least the possibility; but the vast majority will leap at once to the conclusion that the whole thing is a concoction of my own imagination; that, taking advantage of The Alien’s landing on this planet, I wrote the story to fit the occasion, very appropriately using The Alien as the main theme. To many this will seem all the more to be true, in face of the fact that in most of my science-fiction stories I have poked ridicule and derision and satire at mankind and all its high vaunted science and civilisation and achievements - always more or less with my tongue in my cheek, however, as the expression has it. And then along comes this Alien, takes a look at us and concludes that he is very disappointed, not to mention disgusted.
“However, I wish to represent a few facts to help substantiate the authenticity of the script. Firstly: for some time after awakening from my hypnosis I was beset by a curious dizziness, though my mind was quite clear. Shortly after The Alien had disappeared I called my physician, Dr. C.M. Rollins. After an examination and a few mental tests he was greatly puzzled. He could not diagnose my case; my dizziness was the aftereffect of a hypnosis of a type he had never before encountered. I offered no explanation except to say that I had not been feeling well for the past several days.
“Secondly: the muscles of my right hand were so cramped from the long period of steady writing that I could not open my fingers. As an explanation I said that I had been writing for hours on the final chapters of my latest book, and Dr. Rollins said: ‘Man, you must be crazy.’ The process of relaxing the muscles was painful.
“Upon my request, Dr. Rollins will vouch for the truth of the above statements.
“Thirdly: when I read the manuscript, the writing was easily recognisable as my own free, swinging longhand up to the last few paragraphs, when the writing became shaky, the last few words terminating in an almost undecipherable scrawl as The Alien’s contact with my mind slipped away.
Fourthly: I presented the manuscript to Mr. Howard A. Byerson, fiction editor of the National Newspaper Syndicate Service, and at once he misunderstood the entire idea. ‘I have read your story, Mr. Lentz,’ he said a few days later, ‘and it certainly comes at an appropriate time, right on the anniversary of The Alien’s landing. A neat idea about the origin of The Alien, but a bit farfetched. Now, let’s see about the price; of course, we shall syndicate your story through our National Newspaper chain and -’
“ ‘You have the wrong idea,’ I said. ‘It is not a story, but a true history of The Alien as related to me by The Alien, and I wish that fact emphasised: if necessary, I will write a letter of explanation to be published with the manuscript. And I am not selling you the publication rights; I am merely giving you the document as the quickest and surest way of presenting it to the public.’
“ ‘But surely you are not serious? An appropriate story by Stanton Cobb Lentz, on the eve of the anniversary of The Alien’s landing, is a scoop; and you -’
“ ‘I do not ask and will not take a cent for the document,’ I said; ‘you have it now; it is yours, so do with it as you see fit.’
“A memory that will live with me always is the sight of The Alien as last seen by me - as last seen on this earth - as it disappeared into infinite smallness there upon my desk - waving two arms upward as if in farewell …
“And whether the above true account and history of The Alien be received as such, or as fiction, there can be no doubt that on a not far off September, a thing from some infinite sphere above landed on this earth - and departed.”
BY HIS BOOTSTRAPS
Robert A Heinlein
This is literally a “whodunit.” There are four or five characters in this story (or puzzle) and most of them are the same man! The question is who is who—and when. Or, when is a man not himself—yesterday, today or tomorrow? It may sound like a joke, but we assure you it isn’t. It is a perfect illustration of the paradox of time travel. If the story’s problem can be solved, then (perhaps) so can time travel.
* * *
Bob Wilson did not see the circle grow.
Nor, for that matter, did he see the stranger who stepped out of the circle and stood staring at the back of Wilson’s neck—stared, and breathed heavily, as if laboring under strong and unusual emotion.
Wilson had no reason to suspect that anyone else was in his room; he had every reason to expect the contrary. He had locked himself in his room for the purpose of completing his thesis in one sustained drive. He had to—tomorrow was the last day for submission, yesterday the thesis had been no more than a title: “An Investigation Into Certain Mathematical Aspects of a Rigor of Metaphysics.”
Fifty-two cigarettes, four pots of coffee and thirteen hours of continuous work had added seven thousand words to the title. As to the validity of his thesis he was far too groggy to give a damn. Get it done, was his only thought, get it done, turn it in, take three stiff drinks and sleep for a week.
He glanced up and let his eyes rest on his wardrobe door, behind which he had cached a gin bottle, nearly full. No, he admonished himself, one more drink and you’ll never finish it, Bob, old son.
The stranger behind him said nothing.
Wilson resumed typing. “—nor is it valid to assume that a conceivable proposition is necessarily a possible proposition, even when it is possible to formulate mathematics which describes the proposition with exactness.
A case in point is the concept ‘time travel.’ Time travel may be imagined and its necessities may be formulated under any and all theories of time, formulae which resolve the paradoxes of each theory. Nevertheless, we know certain things about the empirical nature of time whic
h preclude the possibility of the conceivable proposition. Duration is an attribute of consciousness and not of the plenum. It has no Ding an Sich. Therefore—”
A key of the typewriter stuck, three more jammed up on top of it. Wilson swore dully and reached forward to straighten out the cantankerous machinery. “Don’t bother with it,” he heard a voice say. “It’s a lot of utter hogwash anyhow.”
Wilson sat up with a jerk, then turned his head slowly around. He fervently hoped that there was someone behind him. Otherwise— He perceived the stranger with relief. “Thank God,” he said to himself.
“For a moment I thought I had come unstuck.” His relief turned to extreme annoyance. “the devil are you doing in my room?” he demanded. He shoved back his chair, got up and strode over to the one door. It was still locked, and bolted on the inside.
The windows were no help; they were adjacent to his desk and three stories above a busy street. “How did you get in?” he added.
“Through that,” answered the stranger, hooking a thumb toward the circle. Wilson noticed it for the first time, blinked his eyes and looked again. There it hung between them and the wall, a great disk of nothing, of the color one sees when the eyes are shut tight.
Wilson shook his head vigorously. The circle remained. “Gosh,” he thought, “I was right the first time. I wonder when I slipped my trolley?” He advanced toward the disk, put out a hand to touch it.
“Don’t!” snapped the stranger.
“Why not?” said Wilson edgily. Nevertheless he paused.
“I’ll explain. But let’s have a drink first.” He walked directly to the wardrobe, opened it, reached in and took out the bottle of gin without looking.
“Hey!” yelled Wilson. “What are you doing there? That’s my liquor.”
“Your liquor—” The stranger paused for a moment. “Sorry. You don’t mind if I have a drink, do you?”
“I suppose not,” Bob Wilson conceded in a surly tone. “Pour me one while you’re about it.”
“Okay,” agreed the stranger, “then I’ll explain.”
“It had better be good,” Wilson said ominously. Nevertheless he drank his drink and looked the stranger over.
He saw a chap about the same size as himself and much the same age—perhaps a little older, though a three-clay growth of beard may have accounted for that impression. The stranger had a black eye and a freshly cut and badly swollen upper lip. Wilson decided he did not like the chaps’ face. Still, there was something familiar about the face; he felt that he should have recognized it, that he had seen it many times before under different circumstances.
“Who are you?” he asked suddenly.
“Me?” said his guest. “Don’t you recognize me?”
“I’m not sure,” admitted Wilson. “Have I ever seen you before?”
“Well—not exactly,” the other temporized. “Skip it—you wouldn’t know about it.”
“What’s your name?”
“My name? Uh … just call me Joe.”
Wilson set down his glass. “Okay, Joe Whatever-your-name-is, trot out that explanation and make it snappy.”
“I’ll do that,” agreed Joe. “That dingus I came through”—he pointed to the circle— “that’s a Time Gate.”
“A what?”
“A Time Gate. Time flows along side by side on each side of the Gate, but some thousands of years apart—just how many thousands I don’t know. But for the next couple of hours that Gate is open. You can walk into the future just by stepping through that circle.” The stranger paused.
Bob drummed on the desk. “Go ahead. I’m listening. It’s a nice story.”
“You don’t believe me, do you? I’ll show you.” Joe got up, went again to the wardrobe and obtained Bob’s hat, his prized and only hat, which he had mistreated into its present battered grandeur through six years of undergraduate and graduate life. Joe chucked it toward the impalpable disk.
It struck the surface, went on through with no apparent resistance, disappeared from sight.
Wilson got up, walked carefully around the circle and examined the bare floor. “A neat trick,” he conceded. “Now I’ll thank you to return to me my hat.”
The stranger shook his head. “You can get it for yourself when you pass through”
“That’s right. Listen—” Briefly the stranger repeated his explanation about the Time Gate. Wilson, he insisted, had an opportunity that comes once in a millennium—if he would only hurry up and climb through that circle. Furthermore, though Joe could not explain in detail at the moment, it was very important that Wilson go through.
Bob Wilson helped himself to a second drink, and then a third. He was beginning to feel both good and argumentative. “Why?” he said flatly.
Joe looked exasperated. “Dammit, if you’d just step through once, explanations wouldn’t be necessary. However—” According to Joe, there was an old guy on the other side who needed Wilson’s help. With Wilson’s help the three of them would run the country. The exact nature of the help Joe could not or would not specify. Instead he bore down on the unique possibilities for high adventure. “You don’t want to slave your life away teaching numskulls in some freshwater college,” he insisted. “This is your chance. Grab it!”
Bob Wilson admitted to himself that a Ph.D. and an appointment as an instructor was not his idea of existence. Still, it beat working for a living. His eye fell on the gin bottle, its level now deplorably lowered. That explained it. He got up unsteadily.
“No, my dear fellow,” he stated, “I’m not going to climb on your merry-go-round. You know why?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m drunk, that’s why. You’re not there at all. That ain’t there.” He gestured widely at the circle. “There ain’t anybody here but me, and I’m drunk. Been working too hard,” he added apologetically. “I’m goin’ to bed.”
“You’re not drunk.”
“I am drunk. Peter Piper pepped a pick of pippered peckles.” He moved toward his bed.
Joe grabbed his arm. “You can’t do that,” he said.
“Let him alone!”
They both swung around. Facing them, standing directly in front of the circle was a third man. Bob looked at the newcomer, looked back at Joe, blinked his eyes and tried to focus them. The two looked a good bit alike, he thought, enough alike to be brothers. Or maybe he was seeing double. Bad stuff, gin. Should ‘ave switched to rum a long time ago. Good stuff, rum. You could drink it, or take a bath in it. No, that was gin—he meant Joe.
How silly! Joe was the one with the black eye. He wondered why he had ever been confused.
Then who was this other lug? Couldn’t a couple of friends have a quiet drink together without people butting in?
“Who are you?” he said with quiet dignity.
The newcomer turned his head, then looked at Joe. “He knows me,” he said meaningly.
Joe looked him over slowly. “Yes,” he said, “yes, I suppose I do. But what the deuce are you here for? And why are you trying to bust up the plan?”
“No time for long-winded explanations. I know more about it than you do—you’ll concede that—and my judgment is bound to be better than yours. He doesn’t go through the Gate.”
“I don’t concede anything of the sort—”
The telephone rang.
“Answer it!” snapped the newcomer.
Bob was about to protest the peremptory tone, but decided he wouldn’t. He lacked the phlegmatic temperament necessary to ignore a ringing telephone. “Hello?”
“Hello,” he was answered. “Is that Bob Wilson?”
“Yes. Who is this?”
“Never mind. I just wanted to be sure you were there. I thought you would be. You’re right in the groove, kid, right in the groove.”
Wilson heard a chuckle, then the click of the disconnection. “Hello,” he said. “Hello!” He jiggled the bar
a couple of times, then hung up.
“What was it?” asked Joe.
“Nothing. Some nut with a misplaced sense of humor.” The telephone bell rang again. Wilson added, “There he is again,” and picked up the receiver. “Listen, you butterfly-brained ape! I’m a busy man, and this is not a public telephone.”
“Why, Bob!” came a hurt feminine voice.
“Huh? Oh, it’s you, Genevieve. Look—I’m sorry. I apologize—”
“Well, I should think you would!”
“You don’t understand, honey. A guy has been pestering me over the phone and I thought it was him. You know I wouldn’t talk that way to you, babe.”
“Well, I should think not. Particularly after all you said to me this afternoon, and all we meant to each other”
“Huh? This afternoon? Did you say this afternoon?”
“Of course. But what I called up about was this: you left your hat in my apartment. I noticed it a few minutes after you had gone and just thought I’d call and tell you where it is. Anyhow,” she added coyly, “it gave me an excuse to hear your voice again.”
“Sure. Fine,” he said mechanically. “Look, babe, I’m a little mixed up about this. Trouble I’ve had all day long, and more trouble now. I’ll look you up tonight and straighten it out. But I know I didn’t leave your hat in my apartment—”
“Your hat, silly!”
“Huh? Oh, sure! Anyhow, I’ll see you tonight. ‘By.” He rang off hurriedly. Gosh, he thought, that woman is getting to be a problem. Hallucinations. He turned to his two companions.
“Very well, Joe. I’m ready to go if you are.” He was not sure just when or why he had decided to go through the time gadget, but he had. Who did this other mug think he was, anyhow, trying to interfere with a man’s freedom of choice?
“Fine!” said Joe, in a relieved voice. “Just step through. That’s all there is to it.”
Adventures in Time and Space Page 113
