By His Bootstraps by Robert A. Heinlein
The sight of the strange walls around him brought him back into continuity. But before he had time to worry—at once, in fact—the door relaxed and Diktor stepped in. “Feeling better?”
“Why, yes, I do. Say, what is this?”
“We’ll get to that. How about some breakfast?”
In Wilson’s scale of evaluations breakfast rated just after life itself and ahead of the chance of immortality. Diktor conducted him to another room—the first that he had seen possessing windows. As a matter of fact half the room was open, a balcony hanging high over a green countryside. A soft, warm, summer breeze wafted through the place. They broke their fast in luxury, Roman style, while Diktor explained.
Bob Wilson did not follow the explanations as closely as he might have done, because his attention was diverted by the maidservants who served the meal. The first came in bearing a great tray of fruit on her head. The fruit was gorgeous. So was the girl. Search as he would he could discern no fault in her.
Her costume lent itself to the search.
She came first to Diktor, and with a single, graceful movement dropped to one knee, removed the tray from her head, and offered it to him. He helped himself to a small, red fruit and waved her away. She then offered it to Bob in the same delightful manner.
“As I was saying,” continued Diktor, “it is not certain where the High Ones came from or where they went when they left Earth. I am inclined to think they went away into Time. In any case they ruled more than twenty thousand years and completely obliterated human culture as you knew it. What is more important to you and to me is the effect they had on the human psyche. One twentieth-century style go-getter can accomplish just about anything he wants to accomplish around here—Aren’t you listening?”
“Huh? Oh, yes, sure. Say, that’s one mighty pretty girl.” His eyes still rested on the exit through which she had disappeared.
“Who? Oh, yes, I suppose so. She’s not exceptionally beautiful as women go around here.”
“That’s hard to believe. I could learn to get along with a girl like that.”
“You like her? Very well, she is yours.”
“Huh?”
“She’s a slave. Don’t get indignant. They are slaves by nature. If you like her, I’ll make you a present of her. It will make her happy.” The girl had just returned. Diktor called to her in a language strange to Bob. “Her name is Arma,” he said in an aside, then spoke to her briefly.
Arma giggled. She composed her face quickly, and, moving over to where Wilson reclined, dropped on both knees to the floor and lowered her head, with both hands cupped before her. “Touch her forehead,” Diktor instructed.
Bob did so. The girl arose and stood waiting placidly by his side. Diktor spoke to her. She looked puzzled, but moved out of the room. “I told her that, notwithstanding her new status, you wished her to continue serving breakfast.”
Diktor resumed his explanations while the service of the meal continued. The next course was brought in by Arma and another girl. When Bob saw the second girl he let out a low whistle. He realized he had been a little hasty in letting Diktor give him Arma. Either the standard of pulchritude had gone up incredibly, he decided, or Diktor went to a lot of trouble in selecting his servants.
“—for that reason,” Diktor was saying, “it is necessary that you go, back through the Time Gate at once. Your first job is to bring this other chap back. Then there is one other task for you to do, and we’ll be sitting pretty. After that it is share and share alike for you and me. And there is plenty to share, I—You aren’t listening!”
“Sure I was, chief. I heard every word you said.” He fingered his chin. “Say, have you got a razor I could borrow? I’d like to shave.”
Diktor swore softly in two languages. “Keep your eyes off those wenches and listen to me! There’s work to be done.”
“Sure, sure. I understand that—and I’m your man. When do we start?” Wilson had made up his mind some time ago—just shortly after Arma had entered with the tray of fruit, in fact. He felt as if he had walked into some extremely pleasant dream. If co-operation with Diktor would cause that dream to continue, so be it. To hell with an academic career!
Anyhow, all Diktor wanted was for him to go back where he started and persuade another guy to go through the Gate. The worst that could happen was for him to find himself back in the twentieth century. What could he lose?
Diktor stood up. “Let’s get on with it,” he said shortly, “before you get your attention diverted again. Follow me.” He set off at a brisk pace with Wilson behind him.
Diktor took him to the Hall of the Gate and stopped. “All you have to do,” he said, “is to step through the Gate. You will find yourself back in your own room, in your own time. Persuade the man you find there to go through the Gate. We have need of him. Then come back yourself.”
Bob held up a hand and pinched thumb and forefinger together. “It’s in the bag, boss. Consider it done.” He started to step through the Gate.
“Wait!” commanded Diktor. “You are not used to time travel. I warn you that you are going to get one hell of a shock when you step through. This other chap—you’ll recognize him.”
“Who is he?”
“I won’t tell you because you wouldn’t understand. But you will when you see him. Just remember this—There are some very strange paradoxes connected with time travel. Don’t let anything you see throw you. You do what I tell you to and you’ll be all right.”
“Paradoxes don’t worry me,” Bob said confidently. “Is that all? I’m ready.”
“One minute.” Diktor stepped behind the raised dais. His head appeared above the side a moment later. “I’ve set the controls. O. K. Go!”
Bob Wilson stepped through the locus known as the Time Gate.
There was no particular sensation connected with the transition. It was like stepping through a curtained doorway into a darker room. He paused for a moment on the other side and let his eyes adjust to the dimmer light. He was, he saw, indeed in his own room.
There was a man in it, seated at his own desk. Diktor had been right about that. This, then, was the chap he was to send back through the Gate. Diktor had said he would recognize him. Well, let’s see who it is.
He felt a passing resentment at finding someone at his desk in his room, then thought better of it. After all, it was just a rented room; when he disappeared, no doubt it had been rented again. He had no way of telling how long he had been gone—shucks, it might be the middle of next week!
The chap did look vaguely familiar, although all he could see was his back. Who was it? Should he speak to him, cause him to turn around? He felt vaguely reluctant to do so until he knew who it was. He rationalized the feeling by telling himself that it was desirable to know with whom he was dealing before he attempted anything as outlandish as persuading this man to go through the Gate.
The man at the desk continued typing, paused to snuff out a cigarette by laying it in an ash tray, then stamping it with a paper weight.
Bob Wilson knew that gesture.
Chills trickled down his back. “If he lights his next one,” he whispered to himself, “the way I think he is going to—”
The man at the desk took out another cigarette, tamped it on one end, turned it and tamped the other, straightened and crimped the paper on one end carefully against his left thumbnail and placed that end in his mouth.
Wilson felt the blood beating in his neck. Sitting there with his back to him was himself, Bob Wilson!
He felt that he was going to faint. He closed his eyes and steadied himself on a chair back. “I knew it,” he thought, “the whole thing is absurd. I’m crazy. I know I’m crazy. Some sort of split personality. I shouldn’t have worked so hard.”
The sound of typing continued.
He pulled himself together, and reconsidered the matter. Diktor had warned him that he was due for a shock, a shock that could not be explained ahead of time, because it could not be believed.
“And if I am crazy, it doesn’t, make a damn bit of difference what I do!
“And furthermore,” he added to himself, “if I’m crazy, maybe I can stay crazy and go back through the Gate! No, that does not make sense. Neither does anything else—the hell with it!”
He crept forward softly and peered over the shoulder of his double. “Duration is an attribute of the consciousness,” he read, “and not of the plenum.”
“That tears it,” he thought, “right back where I started, and watching myself write my thesis.”
The typing continued. “It has no ding an sicht. Therefore—” A key stuck, and others piled up on top of it. His double at the desk swore and reached out a hand to straighten the keys.
“Don’t bother with it,” Wilson said on sudden impulse. “It’s a lot of utter hogwash anyhow.”
The other Bob Wilson sat up with a jerk, then looked slowly around. An expression of surprise gave way to annoyance. “What the devil are you doing in my room?” he demanded. Without waiting for an answer he got up, went quickly to the door and examined the lock. “How did you get in?”
“This,” thought Wilson, “is going to be difficult.”
“Through that,” Wilson answered, pointing to the Time Gate. His double looked where he had pointed, did a double take, then advanced cautiously and started to touch it.
“Don’t!” yelled Wilson.
The other checked himself. “Why not?” he demanded.
Just why he must not permit his other self to touch the Gate was not clear to Wilson, but he had had an unmistakable feeling of impending disaster when he saw it about to happen. He temporized by saying, “I’ll explain. But let’s have a drink.” A drink was a good idea in any case. There had never been a time when he needed one more than he did right now. Quite automatically he went to his usual cache of liquor in the wardrobe and took out the bottle he expected to find there.
“Hey!” protested the other. “What are you doing there? That’s my liquor.”
“Your liquor—” Hell’s bells! It was his liquor. No, it wasn’t; it was—their liquor. Oh, the devil! It was much too mixed up to try to explain. “Sorry. You don’t mind if I have a drink, do you?”
“I suppose not,” his double said grudgingly. “Pour me one while you’re about it.”
“O. K.,” Wilson assented, “then I’ll explain.” It was going to be much, much too difficult to explain until he had had a drink, he felt. As it was, he couldn’t explain it fully to himself.
“It had better be good,” the other warned him, and looked Wilson over carefully while he drank his drink.
Wilson watched his younger self scrutinizing him with confused and almost insupportable emotions. Couldn’t the stupid fool recognize his own face when he saw it in front of him? If he could not see what the situation was, how in the world was he ever going to make it clear to him?
It had slipped his mind that his face was barely recognizable in any case, being decidedly battered and unshaven. Even more important, he failed to take into account the fact that a person does not look at his own face, even in mirrors, in the same frame of mind with which he regards another’s face. No sane person ever expects to see his own face hanging on another.
Wilson could see that his companion was puzzled by his appearance, but it was equally clear that no recognition took place. “Who are you?” the other man asked suddenly.
“Me?” replied Wilson. “Don’t you recognize me?”
“I’m not sure. Have I ever seen you before?”
“Well—not exactly,” Wilson stalled. How did you go about telling another guy that the two of you were a trifle closer than twins? “Skip it—you wouldn’t know about it.”
“What’s your name?”
“My name? Uh—” Oh, oh! This was going to be sticky! The whole situation was utterly ridiculous. He opened his mouth, tried to form the words “Bob Wilson,” then gave up with a feeling of utter futility. Like many a man before him, he found himself forced into a lie because the truth simply would not be believed. “Just call me Joe,” he finished lamely.
He felt suddenly startled at his own words. It was at this point that he realized that he was in fact, “Joe,” the Joe whom he had encountered once before. That he had landed back in his own room at the very time at which he had ceased working on his thesis he already realized, but he had not had time to think the matter through. Hearing himself refer to himself as Joe slapped him in the face with the realization that this was not simply a similar scene, but the same scene he had lived through once before—save that he was living through it from a different viewpoint.
At least he thought it was the same scene. Did it differ in any respect? He could not be sure as he could not recall, word for word, what the conversation had been.
For a complete transcript of the scene that lay dormant in his memory he felt willing to pay twenty-five dollars cash, plus sales tax.
Wait a minute now—he was under no compulsion. He was sure of that. Everything he did and said was the result of his own free will. Even if he couldn’t remember the script, there were some things he knew “Joe” hadn’t said. “Mary had a little lamb,” for example. He would recite a nursery rhyme and get off this damned repetitious treadmill. He opened his mouth—
“O. K., Joe Whatever-your-name-is,” his alter ego remarked, setting down a glass which had contained, until recently, a quarter pint of gin, “trot out that explanation and make it snappy.”
He opened his mouth again to answer the question, then closed it. “Steady, son, steady,” he told himself. “You’re a free agent. You want to recite a nursery rhyme—go ahead and do it. Don’t answer him; go ahead and recite it—and break this vicious circle.”
But under the unfriendly, suspicious eye of the man opposite him he found himself totally unable to recall any nursery rhyme. His mental processes stuck on dead center.
He capitulated. “I’ll do that. That dingus I came through—that’s a Time Gate.”
“A what?”
“A Time Gate. Time flows along side by side on each side—” As he talked he felt sweat breaking out on him; he felt reasonably sure that he was explaining in exactly the same words in which explanation had first been offered to him. “—into the future just by stepping through that circle.” He stopped and wiped his forehead.
“Go ahead,” said the other implacably. “I’m listening. It’s a nice story.”
Bob suddenly wondered if the other man could be himself. The stupid arrogant dogmatism of the man’s manner infuriated him. All right, all right! He’d show him. He strode suddenly over to the wardrobe, took out his hat and threw it through the Gate.
His opposite number watched the hat snuff out of existence with expressionless eyes, then stood up and went around in back of the Gate, walking with the careful steps of a man who is a little bit drunk, but determined not to show it. “A neat trick,” he applauded, after satisfying himself that the hat was gone, “now I’ll thank you to return to me my hat.”
Wilson shook his head. “You can get it for yourself when you pass through,” he answered absent-mindedly. He was pondering the problem of how many hats there were on the other side of the Gate.
“Huh?”
“That’s right. Listen—” Wilson did his best to explain persuasively what it was he wanted his earlier persona to do. Or rather to cajole. Explanations were out of the question, in any honest sense of the word. He would have preferred attempting to explain tensor calculus to an Australian aborigine, even though he did not understand that esoteric mathematics himself.
The other man was not helpful. He seemed more interested in nursing the gin than he did in following Wilson’s implausible protestations.
“Why?” he interrupted pugnaciously.
“Dammit,”
Wilson watched his companion narrowly and thought he detected a favorable response. He definitely seemed interested. But the other set his glass down carefully, stared at the gin bottle, and at last replied:
“My dear fellow, I am 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 Gate, nearly fell, and recovered himself with effort. “There ain’t anybody here but me, and I’m drunk. Been working too hard,” he mumbled, “ ’m goin’ to bed.”
“You’re not drunk,” Wilson protested unhopefully. “Damnation,” he thought, “a man who can’t hold his liquor shouldn’t drink.”
“I am drunk. Peter Piper pepped a pick of pippered peckles.” He lumbered over toward the bed.
Wilson grabbed his arm. “You can’t do that.”
“Let him alone!”
Wilson swung around, saw a third man standing in front of the Gate—recognized him with a sudden shock. His own recollection of the sequence of events was none too clear in his memory, since he had been somewhat intoxicated—damned near boiled, he admitted—the first time he had experienced this particular busy afternoon. He realized that he should have anticipated the arrival of a third party. But his memory had not prepared him for who the third party would turn out to be.