By His Bootstraps by Robert A. Heinlein
He recognized himself—another carbon copy.
He stood silent for a minute, trying to assimilate this new fact and force it into some reasonable integration. He closed his eyes helplessly. This was just a little too much. He felt that he wanted to have a few plain words with Diktor.
“Who the hell are you?” He opened his eyes to find that his other self, the drunk one, was addressing the latest edition. The newcomer turned away from his interrogator and looked sharply at Wilson.
“He knows me.”
Wilson took his time about replying. This thing was getting out of hand. “Yes,” he admitted, “yes, I suppose I do. But what the deuce are you here for? And why are you trying to bust up the plan?”
His facsimile cut him short. “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.”
The offhand arrogance of the other antagonized Wilson. “I don’t concede anything of the sort—” he began.
He was interrupted by the telephone bell. “Answer it!” snapped Number Three.
The tipsy Number One looked belligerent but picked up the handset. “Hello…Yes. Who is this?… Hello… Hello!” He tapped the bar of the instrument, then slammed the receiver back into its cradle.
“Who was that?” Wilson asked, somewhat annoyed that he had not had a chance to answer it himself.
“Nothing. Some nut with a misplaced sense of humor.” At that instant the telephone rang again. “There he is again!” Wilson tried to answer it, but his alcoholic counterpart beat him to it, brushed him aside. “Listen, you butterfly-brained ape! I’m a busy man and this is not a public telephone… Huh? Oh, it’s you, Genevieve. Look—I’m sorry. I apologize—… 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 to you that way, Babe… Huh? This afternoon? Did you say this afternoon?… Sure. Fine. 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—… Huh? Oh, sure! Anyhow, I’ll see you tonight. ’By.”
It almost nauseated Wilson to hear his earlier self catering to the demands of that clinging female. Why didn’t he just hang up on her? The contrast with Arma—there was a dish!—was acute; it made him more determined than ever to go ahead with the plan, despite the warning of the latest arrival.
After hanging up the phone his earlier self faced him, pointedly ignoring the presence of the third copy. “Very well, Joe,” he announced. “I’m ready to go if you are.”
“Fine!” Wilson agreed with relief. “Just step through. That’s all there is to it.”
“No, you don’t!” Number Three barred the way.
Wilson started to argue, but his erratic comrade was ahead of him. “Listen, you! You come butting in here like you think I was a bum. If you don’t like it, go jump in the lake—and I’m just the kind of a guy who can do it! You and who else?”
They started trading punches almost at once. Wilson stepped in warily, looking for an opening that would enable him to put the slug on Number Three with one decisive blow.
He should have watched his drunken ally as well. A wild swing from that quarter glanced off his already damaged features and caused him excruciating pain. His upper lip, cut, puffy, and tender from his other encounter, took the blow and became an area of pure agony. He flinched and jumped back.
A sound cut through his fog of pain, a dull Smack! He forced his eyes to track and saw the feet of a man disappear through the Gate. Number Three was still standing by the Gate. “Now you’ve done it!” he said bitterly to Wilson, and nursed the knuckles of his left hand.
The obviously unfair allegation reached Wilson at just the wrong moment. His face still felt like an experiment in sadism. “Me?” he said angrily. “You knocked him through. I never laid a finger on him.”
“Yes, but it’s your fault. If you hadn’t interfered, I wouldn’t have had to do it.”
“Me interfere? Why, you bald-faced hypocrite—you butted in and tried to queer the pitch. Which reminds me—you owe me some explanations and I damn well mean to have ’em. What’s the idea of—”
But his opposite number cut in on him. “Stow it,” he said gloomily.
“It’s too late now. He’s gone through.”
“Too late for what?” Wilson wanted to know.
“Too late to put a stop to this chain of events.”
“Why should we?”
“Because,” Number Three said bitterly, “Diktor has played me—I mean has played you … us—for a dope, for a couple of dopes. Look, he told you that he was going to set you up as a big shot over there”—he indicated the Gate—“didn’t he?”
“Yes,” Wilson admitted.
“Well, that’s a lot of malarkey. All he means to do is to get us so incredibly tangled up in this Time Gate thing that we’ll never get straightened out again.”
Wilson felt a sudden doubt nibbling at his mind. It could be true. Certainly there had not been much sense to what had happened so far. After all, why should Diktor want his help, want it bad enough to offer to split with him, even-Stephen, what was obviously a cushy spot? “How do you know?” he demanded.
“Why go into it?” the other answered wearily. “Why don’t you just take my word for it?”
“Why should I?”
His companion turned a look of complete exasperation on him. “If you can’t take my word, whose word can you take?”
The inescapable logic of the question simply annoyed Wilson. He resented this interloping duplicate of himself anyhow; to be asked to follow his lead blindly irked him. “I’m from Missouri,” he said. “I’ll see for myself.” He moved toward the Gate.
“Where are you going?”
“Through! I’m going to look up Diktor and have it out with him.”
“Don’t!” the other said. “Maybe we can break the chain even now.”
Wilson felt and looked stubborn. The other sighed. “Go ahead,” he surrendered. “It’s your funeral. I wash my hands of you.”
Wilson paused as he was about to step through the Gate. “It is, eh? Hm-m-m—how can it be my funeral unless it’s your funeral, too?”
The other man looked blank, then an expression of apprehension raced over his face. That was the last Wilson saw of him as he stepped through.
The Hall of the Gate was empty of other occupants when Bob Wilson came through on the other side. He looked for his hat, but did not find it, then stepped around back of the raised platform, seeking the exit he remembered. He nearly bumped into Diktor.
“Ah, there you are!” the older man greeted him. “Fine! Fine! Now there is just one more little thing to take care of, then we will be all squared away. I must say I am pleased with you, Bob, very pleased indeed.”
“Oh, you are, are you?” Bob faced him truculently. “Well, it’s too bad I can’t say the same about you! I’m not a damn bit pleased. What was the idea of shoving me into that… that daisy chain without warning me? What’s the meaning of all this nonsense? Why didn’t you warn me?”
“Easy, easy,” said the older man, “don’t get excited. Tell the truth now—if I had told you that you were going back to meet yourself face to face, would you have believed me? Come now, ’fess up.”
Wilson admitted that he would not have believed it.
“Well, then,” Diktor continued with a shrug, “there was no point in me telling you, was there? If I had told you, you would not have believed me, which is another way of saying that you would have believed false data. Is it not better to be in ignorance than to believe falsely?”
“I suppose so, but—”
“Wait! I did not intentionally deceive you. I did not deceive you at all. But had I told you the full truth, you would have been deceived because you would have rejected the truth. It was better for you t
“Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” Wilson cut in. “You’re getting me all tangled up. I’m willing to let bygones be bygones, if you’ll come clean with me. Why did you send me back at all?”
“ ‘Let bygones be bygones.’ ” Diktor repeated. “Ah, if we only could! But we can’t. That’s why I sent you back—in order that you might come through the Gate in the first place.”
“Huh? Wait a minute—I already had come through the Gate.”
Diktor shook his head. “Had you, now? Think a moment. When you got back into your own time and your own place you found your earlier self there, didn’t you?”
“Mmmm—yes.”
“He—your earlier self—had not yet been through the Gate, had he?”
“No. I—”
“How could you have been through the Gate, unless you persuaded him to go through the Gate?”
Bob Wilson’s head was beginning to whirl. He was beginning to wonder who did what to whom and who got paid. “But that’s impossible! You are telling me that I did something because I was going to do something.”
“Well, didn’t you? You were there.”
“No, I didn’t—no… well, maybe I did, but it didn’t feel like it.”
“Why should you expect it to? It was something totally new to your experience.”
“But… but—” Wilson took a deep breath and got control of himself. Then he reached back into his academic philosophical concepts and produced the notion he had been struggling to express. “It denies all reasonable theories of causation. You would have me believe that causation can be completely circular. I went through because I came back from going through to persuade myself to go through. That’s silly.”
“Well, didn’t you?”
Wilson did not have an answer ready for that one. Diktor continued with, “Don’t worry about it. The causation you have been accustomed to is valid enough in its own field but is simply a special case under the general case. Causation in a plenum need not be and is not limited by a mans perception of duration”
Wilson thought about that for a moment. It sounded nice, but there was something slippery about it. “Just a second,” he said. “How about entropy? You can’t get around entropy.”
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake,” protested Diktor, “shut up, will you? You remind me of the mathematicians that proved that airplanes couldn’t fly.” He turned and started out the door. “Come on. There’s work to be done.”
Wilson hurried after him. “Dammit, you can’t do this to me. What happened to the other two?”
“The other two what?”
“The other two of me? Where are they? How am I ever going to get unsnarled?”
“You aren’t snarled up. You don’t feel like more than one person, do you?
“No, but—”
“Then don’t worry about it.” “But I’ve got to worry about it. What happened to the guy that came through just ahead of me?”
“You remember, don’t you? However—” Diktor hurried on ahead, led him down a passageway, and dilated a door. “Take a look inside,” he directed.
Wilson did so. He found himself looking into a small windowless unfurnished room, a room that he recognised. Sprawled on the floor, snoring steadily, was another edition of himself.
“When you first came through the Gate,” explained Diktor at his elbow, “I brought you in here, attended to your hurts, and gave you a drink. The drink contained a soporific which will cause you to sleep about thirty-six hours, sleep that you badly needed. When you wake up, I will give you breakfast and explain to you what needs to be done.”
Wilson’s head started to ache again. “Don’t do that,” he pleaded. “Don’t refer to that guy as if he were me. This is me, standing here.”
“Have it your own way,” said Diktor. “That is the man you were. You remember the things that are about to happen to him, don’t you?”
“Yes, but it makes me dizzy. Close the door, please.”
“O. K.,” said Diktor, and complied. “We’ve got to hurry, anyhow. Once a sequence like this is established there is no time to waste. Come on.” He led the way back to the Hall of the Gate.
“I want you to return to the twentieth century and obtain certain things for us, things that can’t be obtained on this side but which will be very useful to us in, ah, developing—yes, that is the word—developing this country.”
“What sort of things?”
“Quite a number of items. I’ve prepared a list for you—certain reference books, certain items of commerce. Excuse me, please. I must adjust the controls of the Gate.” He mounted the raised platform from the rear. Wilson followed him and found that the structure was boxlike, open at the top, and had a raised floor. The Gate could be seen by looking over the high sides.
The controls were unique.
Four colored spheres the size of marbles hung on crystal rods arranged with respect to each other as the four major axes of a tetrahedron. The three spheres which bounded the base of the tetrahedron were red, yellow, and blue; the fourth at the apex was white. “Three spatial controls, one time control,” explained Diktor. “It’s very simple. Using here-and-now as zero reference, displacing any control away from the center moves the other end of the Gate farther from here-and-now. Forward or back, right or left, up or down, past or future—they are all controlled by moving the proper sphere in or out on its rod.”
Wilson studied the system. “Yes,” he said, “but how do you tell where the other end of the Gate is? Or when? I don’t see any graduations.”
“You don’t need them. You can see where you are. Look.” He touched a point under the control framework on the side toward the Gate. A panel rolled back and Wilson saw there was a small image of the Gate itself. Diktor made another adjustment and Wilson found that he could see through the image.
He was gazing into his own room, as if through the wrong end of a telescope. He could make out two figures, but the scale was too small for him to see clearly what they were doing, nor could he tell which editions of himself were there present—if they were in truth himself! He found it quite upsetting. “Shut it off,” he said.
Diktor did so and said, “I must not forget to give you your list.” He fumbled in his sleeve and produced a slip of paper which he handed to Wilson. “Here—take it.”
Wilson accepted it mechanically and stuffed it into his pocket. “See here,” he began, “everywhere I go I keep running into myself. I don’t like it at all. It’s disconcerting. I feel like a whole batch of guinea pigs. I don’t half understand what this is all about and now you want to rush me through the Gate again with a bunch of half-baked excuses. Come clean. Tell me what it’s all about.”
Diktor showed temper in his face for the first time. “You are a stupid and ignorant young fool. I’ve told you all that you are able to understand. This is a period in history entirely beyond your comprehension. It would take weeks before you would even begin to understand it. I am offering you half a world in return for a few hours’ co-operation and you stand there arguing about it. Stow it, I tell you. Now—where shall we set you down?” He reached for the controls.
“Get away from those controls!” Wilson rapped out. He was getting the glimmering of an idea. “Who are you, anyhow?”
“Me? I’m Diktor.”
“That’s not what I mean and you know it. How did you learn English?”
Diktor did not answer. His face became expressionless.
“Go on,” Wilson persisted. “You didn’t learn it here; that’s a cinch. You’re from the twentieth century, aren’t you?”
Diktor smiled sourly. “I wondered how long it would take you to figure that out.”
Wilson nodded. “Maybe I’m not bright, but I’m not as stupid as you think I am. Come on. Give me the rest of the story.”
Diktor shook his head. “It’s immaterial. Besides, we’re wasting time.”
Wilson laughed. “You’ve tried to
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Diktor answered slowly. “That’s impossible. I’ve got to stay here and manage the controls.”
“That’s just what you aren’t going to do. You could send me through and lose me. I prefer to keep you in sight.”
“Out of the question,” answered Diktor. “You’ll have to trust me.” He bent over the controls again.
“Get away from there!” shouted Wilson. “Back out of there before I bop you one.” Under Wilson’s menacing fist Diktor withdrew from the control pulpit entirely. “There. That’s better,” he added when both of them were once more on the floor of the hall.
The idea which had been forming in his mind took full shape. The controls, he knew, were still set on his room in the boardinghouse where he lived—or had lived—back in the twentieth century. From what he had seen through the speculum of the controls, the time control was set to take him right back to the day in 1942 from which he had started. “Stand there,” he commanded Diktor, “I want to see something.”
He walked over to the Gate as if to inspect it. Instead of stopping when he reached it, he stepped on through.
He was better prepared for what he found on the other side than he had been on the two earlier occasions of time translation—“earlier” in the sense of sequence in his memory track. Nevertheless it is never too easy on the nerves to catch up with one’s self.
For he had done it again. He was back in his own room, but there were two of himself there before him. They were very much preoccupied with each other; he had a few seconds in which to get them straightened out in his mind. One of them had a beautiful black eye and a badly battered mouth. Beside that he was very much in need of a shave. That tagged him. He had been through the Gate at least once. The other, though somewhat in need of shaving himself, showed no marks of a fist fight.