Horsesense Hank in the parallel worlds (2024)

The whole damn thing was Jamieson's fault. He was a snippy sort ofsomebody, anyway, even if he was head of the U. S. government's physicsresearch department. He liked nothing more than to fling his physicaland mental weight around. Because he had an exaggerated amount of thefirst, and an exaggerated opinion of the second, he riled Hank Cleaverworse than boils on the postscript.

"It ain't jest whut he says, Jim," Hank groused one night. "Thatdon'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 screwyas he wants. But, dag-gone, it's the way he says things! Like hewas the oney one had a speck o' common-sense! Now, if I didn't have alittle bit, would I be here?"

That question needed no answer. Hank was here—in Washington, D.C.—simply and solely because the men who run our nation had finallyrecognized his peculiar abilities.

"Horsesense Hank" Cleaver was not an educated man in the formal senseof the phrase. He had never completed college or high school, and it isan even money bet that he never got much farther than the sixth gradeof the rural grammar school near his Lower Westville farm. But he hadsomething greater, more important, than mere "book-larnin'." He had agift for determining the answers to problems of any scientific natureby means of plain, old-fashioned, common-sense horse-logic.

It was this gift which had lifted him from his lonely turnip-patch tothe ivy-covered walls of Midland University, which alleged institutionof higher knowledge had installed him to the Chair of General andPractical Sciences ... and it was this same gift which had enabled himto serve his country well as Chief Estimator at the Northern Bridge,Steel and Girder Company during the first months of the war.[1]

Now a grateful government had transferred him to the nation's capital,where his straightforward reasoning might be at the service of thePresident himself ... and because Hank Cleaver and Jim Blakeson are asinseparable as corn pone and chitlins, I was here with him.

As a matter of fact, dear old Washington-on-the-Potomac was beginningto look like an overgrown Midland U. campus. H. Logan MacDowell,president of the college, was here as a "dollar a year man"—and worthevery penny of it!—while his charming daughter, Helen, Hank's fiancée,was working in the U.S.O. headquarters.

"It ain't," complained Hank, scowling, "as if I was hard to git alongwith. Gosh knows I'm easy-goin' enough—"

There was no gainsaying that. Hank was as mild and gentle as aCarnation cow.

"—but he plagues me!" confessed Hank. "Disagrees with most everythingI say. Spouts facts an' figgers at me, when he knows dingbusted wellI can't understand that kind o' talk. My brain don't work thataway. Ijest git the theories an' work 'em out by plain, dumb hoss-logic—"

I said, "Well, what's the trouble now?"

Hank fingered a paper of cut-plug, tucked enough in his cheek to makehim look as if he were munching on a medium sized billiard ball. Thiswas his one vice. When he married fair Helen a few months hence,it would probably become tabu. Meanwhile, in the privacy of theapartment we shared, he kept his molars and incisors well lubricated.

"Wa-a-all," he said, "it's time!"

I stared at the clock. "Time? Time for what?"

"Not that kind o' time, Jim. I mean the problem o' Time. Whut it is,and how you can shift around in it an' all that sort o' stuff."

I said, "Oh. In other words, pal Jamieson has been making with themeta-physics, eh? On account of what?"

"On account," explained Hank, "of I happened to say wouldn't it beswell if somebuddy could go backward in Time and do somethin' to stopthe Nazi movement from ever gettin' organized. Then there wouldn't beno war like we're fightin' today."

"That," I approved, "sounds like a swell idea. Go back and push alittle paperhanger named Adolph Shicklgruber under a Munich street-car,huh? I'd gladly volunteer for the job—if there was any way of doingit."

"So would most of us. Oney Jamieson," continued Hank, "'lowed as how itwas impossible. He claims all this warfare and stuff is inescapable.Says the progress of mankind is foreordained, an' they can't nobuddydo nothin' to change it, ever. He says the Book o' Time was all writup in advance, an' they wasn't no way to change it—" Hank squinted atme dubiously. "He quoted some pome out of a book called The Di'mondSailboat, or somethin'—"

"Sue me if I'm wrong," I grinned, "but maybe it was the Rubaiyat? Byan old Persian named Omar? He wrote:

"That's it, Jim," nodded Hank. "That's the poem he said. Well, I triedto reason with him. Told him he was all wrong. Things couldn't bethataway!"

I asked, "Why not, Hank? Lots of philosophers have reached theconclusion that existence is predestined."

"Mebbe so!" said Hank doggedly. "But it jest ain't logical. Life ischemical, an' existence is jest like a chemical equation, Jim—balancedon a hair-spring. Every little thing which happens: the fall of anempire, the discovery of a new element, somebody's cold in the head,anything an' everything, becomes a factor. We live in the world we livein today because it's the only possible world under the conditions ofour past!

"Of course, there could be—" Hank's eyes clouded. "There could be—"

I laughed at him. "For once, pal, you're caught in a middle. Yourtheory is just as good as Jamieson's, but no better. You can't proveit. So how about a couple rounds of checkers before we turn in?"

Hank temporarily forgot whatever new conjecture had occurred to him. Helooked a bit petulant as he aimed a shot of liquid brown at the distantbronze jug.

"Now, looky here, Jim—you don't deny things would be a heap diff'rentif you an' me'd never met, an' I'd stayed home on my turnip farm?"

"No."

"Well, then!"

"But," I pointed out, "perhaps it was ordained that we should meet andthat you should come to Midland U."

Hank groaned.

"Jim Blakeson, you make me plumb sick! You're durn near as bad asJamieson. That settles it! I began thinkin' this afternoon mebbe I'd doit; now I've made up my mind!"

"Do what?" I demanded.

"I'm gonna settle this question," he said firmly.

"I'm goin' back to the past an' find out if you two are right. Ifthings is inevitable, or whether circ*mstances can change 'em."

I gulped. Hank sometimes said fantastic things but he never makesboasts he cannot fulfil. This, however—

"T—the past?" I faltered.

"You heard me," declared Hank petulantly. "I guess I'll be kinda busyf'r the next couple o' days. I'm goin' to build me one o' them therenow time-travel machines!"

CHAPTER II

Double Feature

Well, you know me! Old brain-like-a-fish Blakeson. I stared at himfoolishly for a moment, then, when he said no more about it, decidedHank had finally developed, along with his many other virtues, a senseof humor. So I chuckled, and he chuckled with me, and we went to bed alittle while later, and I proceeded to forget all about it.

It didn't even dawn on me, when the next morning he went out andcame home with a couple armloads of wires, tubes and miscellaneousdoogadgets, that he meant business. He was always prancing home withsome kind of lab equipment or other—you know how amateur scientistsare.

So I went ahead with my duties, which were plugging the sale of U.S. Government Bonds and Stamps—and, by the way, you better buy 'em,kiddies!—and three days whisked by as days have a habit of doing.

Then Travis Tomkins, chief technician of the observatory, halted me oneday on the street.

"Say, Blakeson, where's Cleaver hiding himself? He promised to help meplot the orbit on that new comet he and I discovered."

"He and you!" I snorted. "Where do you get the community spirit? Allyou did was point the telescope where Hank told you! Oh—he's places,doing things. I'll tell him you want him."

And less than an hour later I bumped into H. Logan MacDowell, himself,in person, and not the captive balloon he looked like, to meet the samequery.

"James, my dear lad," puffed the erstwhile Prexy of our former AlmaMammy. "I have been endeavoring to ascertain the whereabouts of ourerudite rural companion. If you could enlighten me—"

"If you mean," I interpreted, "where's Hank, I guess he's home."

H. Logan pawed his plump jowls speculatively. "You might inform himthat my daughter is most disturbed about his apparent disinclination toseek her company."

"H-how's that again?" I asked. MacDowell frowned at me disapprovingly.

"The custom," he hrrumphed, "is commonly known as—er—dating."

"You mean she wants to fling woo," I said, "and old Hank ain't beenparking on the divan lately? Now I know he's off his button. A gallike Helen, and with the marriage date already set—all right, Prexy.I'll tell him."

So I guess those two chance meetings served as eye-openers, becausewhen I went home that evening, I came to the realization that HankCleaver had turned our tiny flat into a super-scientific workshop.There were odds and ends of things all over the living room; when Ientered I heard a humming in Hank's bedroom, a curious, whining wailthat stopped just as I entered, gave way to the tapping of a hammer onmetal.

"Hank!" I yelled.

No answer. The lamps dimmed for a moment then rose again as the hummingsound drowned out my call.

"Hank!" I cried again.

Still no answer. So I walked over to his door, and banged. "Hey! Comeout, come out, wherever you are!"

And Hank came to the door, hair rumpled, a smear of grease runningdiagonally from his right temple to the tip of his nose, collar open,sleeves rolled high—

"Was you callin' me, Jim?" he asked.

"Who, me?" I retorted elaborately. "Oh, no! I was just addressing anenvelope—hey, what the hell makes around here? Anyhow? Everybody andhis brother has been asking me where I hid the corpus delicti. Whatare you making—"

Then I looked over his shoulder and saw it.

It was the wildest, weirdest looking thing you ever set eyes on in yourlife. I can't describe it exactly. They say English is the most elasticof all languages, but even it lacks the words to describe somethings. 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 sugarand spice and everything nice; that's what little girls are made of!It was shaped something like the tonneau of a 1931 model Packard, andsomewhat more like a big, old-fashioned bathtub with a hood. It wasroughly oval, but only roughly so, because you couldn't exactly decidewhat shape it was. It wriggled!

So help me, that's just what it did! Coils of wire wound around andaround the tonneau part, in which there were two wide upholstered seatsand an incomprehensible dashboard, bedecked with twelve or twentydials; these coils twisted out to fore and aft of the egg-shapedstructure—and vanished!

It had other features. But that's all I saw during that first, startledglance. And that was enough. I loosed a squawk of despair and held onto Hank for dear life.

"W—what is it?" I yelped. "Great whispering winds, what do you callthat—that monstrosity?"

Hank said, "Now, ca'm down, Jim. It ain't like you to act thisaway.They ain't no cause for alarm."

"That's what they told Mrs. O'Leary when she bought a cow," I moaned,"only look what happened!" Then suddenly I remembered our conversationof a few nights ago, and I choked on my own incredulous words."Hank—that's not it? 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 whutyou mought call the truth. 'Cause that's jest whut it is. The machinethat'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—andthen the double-take struck me. "Us!" I howled. "Us! Into the past?Oh, no! Gangway, pal—"

Hank grabbed me and held on tight. He's about four inches taller thanI am, and dawn-to-dusk workouts behind the plow built him muscles liketension springs. My legs churned air, and I got nowhere. Hank saidaggrievedly, "Now, Jim—I never thought you'd let me down like this—"

"Talking about letting down," I bleated, "how about me? Who's holdingwho? Leggo, Hank! I just remembered, I'm supposed to meet a guy aboutfour thousand miles from here!"

"Now, durn it, you got to come with me!" said Hank. "It wouldn't do meno good to go gallivantin' off to the past by myself. I got to havewitnesses. I'll have this machine all finished by tomorrow—"

Then it wasn't completed yet! That was a horse of a different collar.I stopped struggling. I said, "Will you be kind enough to take yourgreasy paws off me, you dope! My goodness, you act as if I were afraidof something!" I moved over to the machine, studied it with pacifiedinterest. "How does it work?" I asked.

Hank grinned sheepishly and worked one bulldog tipped toe into the rug.

"Aw, it wasn't nothin' much, really. Not when you understand whut Timeis."

"Oh, naturally!" I said. "But isn't it funny? For the moment it seemsto have slipped my mind. What is Time?"

"Why, it's another dimension o' matter. Some calls it the 'fourthdimension,' but that's plumb silly, o' course. Dimensions isdimensions, an' it don't matter how you number 'em so long as you knowhow to use 'em.

"Anyhow, whut this here machine does is run down a pathway through theTime dimension jest like an auto runs on a road or an elevator runs upan' down or an airyplane flies 'round in circles. See?"

"No!" I said.

"Well, it's as simple as A-B-C, Jim. I just made a helical vortex withthese here wires as the motivating cores, and slung the machine in itlike a basket. Right now while I test it, I got it operatin' on A.C.house current, but when I push this little doogummy—" He pressed asmall switch. "I shift it to self-generatin' D.C. These other leverscontrol the distance in Time it travels, and there's space-locationfinders, too.

"Only thing I ain't figgered out yet is—"

"Yet!" I gasped. "Yet! You've done all this within four days. Solved aproblem that has eluded men of genius for centuries, and you're worriedabout 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 knowthat. So tell me—how on earth could you know how to make this machine?"

Cleaver blushed.

"Why, it just come sort o' natcheral, Jim. 'Peared to me as if they wasoney one way to make it, so—O golly!"

A stricken look swept suddenly over his face, and I spun to discoverthe reason. The Reason was five-foot-two of loveliness standing inthe doorway of our apartment. Breath-taking but outraged loveliness,answering to the name of Miss Helen MacDowell.

Her dark eyes were like thunder-clouds, and her foot tapped the carpetangrily.

"Well!" she said. "Well, at last I find you!"

It was I who had to hold Hank Cleaver now. He was trying desperately towriggle out of my grasp. I believe he had some idea of trying to crawlunder the carpet. Finally he surrendered, turned to face his fiancée.

"H-hullo, honey!" he said.

"Don't 'honey' me!" snapped Helen. "What were you two talking aboutjust now?"

Hank had temporarily suffered a paralysis of the vocal cords. I went tobat for him.

"Dimensions," I said. "Hank was explaining to me how the Time dimensionoperates."

Helen sniffed. "Time, indeed! Perhaps he needs an explanation of Timehimself. I suppose you completely forgot you had a date with me an hourand a half ago, Hank Cleaver?"

Hank strangled. I said apologetically, "Now, Helen—don't be angry. Iguess he forgot dimension it."

"That," scorned the girl, "is just the sort of poor joke I shouldexpect from you, Jim. Well, I'm going to marry him and get him awayfrom your bad influence soon—" Before I could think up a good comebackto that one, she shouldered past me into Hank's bedroom-laboratory,eyed with disdain the wavering, nebulous whatchamaycallit standingthere. "What do you call this?" she demanded.

"It—it's a time-machine, honey," said Hank meekly.

"Hmmm! Funniest looking clock I ever saw!"

"Not that kind of Time, sugar-plum." Hank visioned forgiveness in heraroused interest. He sprang to her side, pointed at the various dialsand gadgets. "This takes you to the past, so you can watch historybeing made. Or into the future—"

Helen, being a woman, had no time for nonsense like that. She gotright down to fundamentals. "It's not streamlined," she said. "Idon't like the color, and the dashboard isn't pretty. Where's thecigarette-lighter? And those seats don't look very comfortable—"

And she climbed into the front seat.

Hank said, "Now, Helen, don't git in there yet! It ain't quitefinished, an'—"

She ignored him with magnificent aplomb. "I'm glad one of us has goodcommon-sense," she said. "If you're going to be an inventor, someonehas 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'renot wide enough, either. Get in here, Jim. Beside me—that's right! Andyou, too, Hank. Now do you see what I mean? These seats should be lotswider—"

Hank said nervously. "All right, sweety-pie. Now let's go see a nicemovie or—"

"And what," continued Helen blandly, "is this tiny key for? A glovecompartment? Let me see inside—"

Hank stiffened like a strychnine victim. His eyes bulged, and his voiceexploded in a sudden roar.

"Don't touch that! Helen, don't—!"

He spoke a split second too late. Already the key was turning. Freezingin my chair, I heard a thin, whining hum from the time-machine'smotors. The framework shook, and I was suddenly aware that whereabout us, a moment before, we had seen a brightly illumined bedroom,now there was nothing but flickering mists of gray ... wavering ...bottomless ... formless....

"Dagnab it!" cried Hank. "Oh, dagnab it to blazes! Now you've went an'did it!"

He reached across the terrified girl, snapped over the key. Instantlythe flickering ceased ... the gray, bottomless mists dissipated ...the illumination returned. We were once again back in the bedroom,sitting in the time-machine.

But—there was a startling difference.

Standing beside us, staring at us with eyes huge as moons and mouthsincredulously agape, were three people. And those three people were—

Helen MacDowell ... Horsesense Hank ... and myself!

CHAPTER III

The Whacky Worlds of Maybe

I was the first to break the horrified silence, and I herebyclaim the all-time, All-American and world's record forsilence-shattering—because two of me broke it at once!

I wailed, "Omigawd!" Then started like a bishop in a burleyque as Iheard my own voice wailing, "Omigawd!"—and saw myself whirl andmake a bee-line for the door.

Then Horsesense Hank—my Horsesense Hank, I should say—put his handon my shoulder and said, "Easy, Jim!" And the other Horsesense Hankput his hand on the other me's arm, and said, "Easy, Jim!", and twoHelens asked, simultaneously, "Hank—what in the world has happened tous?"

Hank's brows were furrowed. He said slowly, "Well, it's this way,honey—" Then he stopped as he realized that his identical twin wassaying the identical words in the same quiet voice. The two Hanksstared at each other for a second, then the other Hank nodded. "Goahead," he said. "Mebbe you c'n explain it better'n me."

The Hank sitting beside me acknowledged the nod with its exactduplicate.

"Awright," he said. "Well, near's I c'n figger out, it's this way:

"Helen done went an' turned on the key while we was sittin' in themachine. Which set it into operation. Like I told you, this machinetravels in time. An' that's jest whut it done!"

"But—but you said it wasn't working yet, Hank!" I moaned.

"No, Jim. I said it wasn't completed yet. There's a difference."

It still didn't make sense. I gestured towards the three "usses"standing beside us.

"But a time-machine ought to go into the future or the past. Thesepeople—"

Hank shook his head. "Jim, I showed you them dials on the dashboard.They control the future-past Time element. And—and they're the gadgetswhich wasn't completed yet!"

I pawed my hair feverishly.

"But if they weren't connected ... if we're neither in the future norin the past ... where are we? And who in the world are they?"

"We're in the present," said Hank, "but we're in a different present.We didn't travel forward or backward. We slipped sideways across theTime dimension to another present based on an entirely different set ofpossibilities.

"Leastwise—" He glanced inquiringly at the other Hank. "—that's whutit 'pears like to me. Hank—er—Mr. Cleaver, how 'bout that? Whuthappened in your past? Didn't she turn the key?"

"Are you crazy?" bleated my double. "Of course she didn't turn the key!She just this moment entered the room."

"Our" Helen seemed suddenly to understand. Some of the stupefactionleft her eyes, a knowing look took its place and she nodded to "their"Helen.

"Delayed, dear? What was it? Your—?"

The other Helen blushed and nodded. "Yes. Just as I was leaving thehouse it snapped. I had to run back in and tack it up."

"I thought of doing that," said our Helen. "Then I decided to just pinit together and come along. Why, this is ridiculous! Surely a littlething like a broken—"

"But it did!" interrupted Hank hastily. "It's like I told you, Jim—anylittle thing will change the hist'ry of existence. You see whuthappened now? Back there an hour or so ago, Helen broke her—somethinghappened to Helen—Which give her a choice of decisions.

"That was a deciding p'int in the hist'ry of all of us. Way ithappened to you folks, she went back an' sewed it up; that made her afew minutes late, an' she never got time to climb into the machine.

"Way it happened to us, Helen just jury-rigged her skivvies—'scuseme, honey-lamb!—an' come along. Got into the machine, turned the keyan'—here we are!"

"Yes, here we are!" I squawked, "but where the hell are we? Logic orno logic, Hank, this is one time I will not believe my own eyes! Theseother 'usses' don't exist. Can't exist. Why, it violates the Law ofConservation of Matter! The same thing can't exist two places at thesame 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. Thisis one world from an infinite number o' possibilities arisin' out o'the past. That other Jim Blakeson looks like you, Jim. An'—" Hankstudied him speculatively. My double had jerked a bottle of rye fromthe bedroom medicine cabinet, and was feverishly engaged in wardingoff pneumonia for the next ten years. "—an' I must admit he actslike you, too—but he ain't you. He's you like you woulda been under adifferent set of coordinates."

This time I had him! Had him cold! Triumphantly I cried, "Then if he'snot me, this whole thing is a delirious dream. Otherwise we couldn'tmeet. Because one of us has no real existence. Even granting thatat any given point in the past an infinitude of things could havehappened, the fact remains that only one thing did happen! So one ofus 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 thatway. From the beginning o' Time I reckon they musta been billions o'different crooshul situations—an' each one o' them has made way toanother possible future, each one as true an' valid as the rest.

"The big trouble is—" And here he looked worried for the first time,stared at his silent prototype. "But you built the machine, too. Youknow whut the trouble is."

And the other Hank nodded his head soberly.

"Mmm-hmm. Been wonderin' about it ever since you arrove. Whut you goin'to do about it?"

"I dunno exactly," confessed Cleaver No. 1. "I—I mean we—hadplanned on installin' a magnetic grapple in the machine so's we c'dalluz get back where we come from—but now, ding-bust it, I'm in themachine an' can't git out, an' the equipment ain't installed—"

That was too much! It was bad enough arguing with Hank Cleaver, but tosit there listening to two Hank Cleavers talking and arguing with oneanother—that was a little too much for me! I sent out an SOS to myalter ego.

"Look, Buster, or Blakeson, or Narcissus,[2] how about aShare-the-Health plan with that bottle? After all, I'm the guy whobought it."

He said, "The hell you did! But here—" And held out the bottle. Ireached for it—

His hand passed completely through the walls of the machine in whichI sat! My hand passed completely in and out of the bottle he handedme; the bottle fell right through my fingers, my arm, and my rightfoot—and crashed on the floor below! Both of me wailed, good dustyrye gurgled cheerfully into the carpet, and I stared at Hank Cleaverdismally.

"Now what?" I demanded. "Now who did what when?"

And Hank, a haunted look in his eyes, said, "Sorry, Jim—but that'sanother o' the drawbacks to this time-travel business. You c'nsee 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'reconcerned, you don't exist!"

Helen MacDowell stared at him.

"You mean we can't step out of this jaloppy when we take it into ourminds to do so?"

"Nope!" said Hank miserably. "We're locked in like caged mice."

The thought was right, but he expressed it much too masculinely. At hiswords, both Helens emitted little squeals of fright. And "our" Helenswung into action.

"Then I," she cried, "am getting out of here! Right away! I'm goingback where I belong—"

"Helen!" howled Hank, agonized. "Hank—try to—!"

But both roar and plea were bootless. For again my brainy chum'sfiancée had clicked the key, the room had faded and all sights andsounds were lost in that gray, flickering veil. Once more we were onour way!

Once when I was a kid in knee-britches I hitched my express-wagon onbehind what I thought was a leisurely, local truck. A few minutes laterI was startled to find I was tied to a private ambulance on emergencycall! Worse yet, I could not unscramble my amateurish knot. I havenever forgotten my wild, heart-pounding ride through the crowded citystreets ... lashing back and forth giddily like a bob in a boilingcauldron ... glimpsing through terrified eyes the unfamiliar streetsthrough which we whirled at lightning speed ... viewing a weirdkaleidoscope of running feet, dodging autos, skyscrapers that seemed totopple precariously toward me as I rocked and swayed and trembled....

What happened now made that childhood memory appear as gentle andundisturbing as Tit-tat-toe Night at the Old Ladies' Home. It wasthe same thing, only more so! Again I experienced that sensation ofwild, headlong, uncontrollable flight—but this time not only was thedestination unfathomable, but also were the sights I saw and the soundsI heard so weirdly incredible as to half madden the brain!

And that was because Horsesense Hank would not let bad enough alone.He kept reaching over and fingering studs, keys, and gadgets on thedashboard. He pushed one doojigger, and the sensation of rising joinedin with the other stomach-churning feelings we were undergoing; hepushed another, and I felt a swift surge forward; to complete myfeeling of utter rout, he kept turning off and on the motivating key.It was whenever he did so, whenever the gray flickering disappeared,that we—we saw things!

And what things we saw!

Our first "stop," I plainly recall, was on the main street of a greatcity. We were right smack-dab in the middle of the street, which didn'tseem to affect us one way or the other, but it sure raised hob with thepeople amongst whom we suddenly and, I suppose miraculously, appeared.

One of them walked right through us, then, discovering what he haddone, loosed a howl of terror and went racing down the street, trailedby a streamer of polysyllables which had, so far as I was concerned,absolutely no meaning.

It was a scandal to the jaybirds that he should be out walking anyway,because all he had on was a pair of soft sandals and a loose, flowinggown that looked like somebody's bleached bathrobe.

The streets were narrow and cobbled, the buildings tall and graceful,colonnaded with pillars, each of which was carven into the form of someheroic male or bulgy shemale. A fountain tinkled on a grassy lawn somefew yards from us, and a bevy of olive-skinned babes were doing thefamily wash in the basin beneath it. When they clapped peepers on us,they joined voices in one chorus of fright, picked up their skirts anddusted.

Hank snapped the key.

His next random stop was no better. If anything it was worse. Wefound ourselves on a dusty road, surrounded by trees and fields inwhich labored scores upon endless scores of—American Indians! Theybent diligently to the labor of harvesting, while over them stood agrim-visaged soldier clad in glistening buckler, greaves and helm. Aswe sat watching, a mounted band of similarly clad warriors swung up theroad. They saw us. Instantly their leader bellowed a command—and dustflew as they charged down upon us.

I'll never forget the look on the leader's face as, with lanceslevelled, banner flying, swords drawn, they came banginghell-for-leather right up to, into and through us!

Hank snapped the key again.

The next sights came and went so fast that I never fully saw norcomprehended any of them. In turn and variously we found ourselves in:a quiet village inhabited by plump little farmers who spoke German;a towering city lighted only by flickering gas-lamps; a dirty littleslum-section wherein evil roisterers roared bawdy songs in a Frenchpatois; a big temple, gilded and magnificent, surrounded by chantingrows of priests; the middle of a brick-and-plaster wall; a hugeairfield upon which were reared fully a dozen monstrous egg-shapedcrafts, one of which, as we stared bewildered, hurled itself heavenwardin a tremendous burst of flame to be lost, a flaming dot, in the ebonreaches of the sky.

Then a thriving little town, where for the first time we saw printedwords we could understand. "POST OFFICE ... Hunter's Fort ...Virginia ... C.S.A."

All these and dozens more, until my brain staggered before thequestions it could not answer. And Hank continued to punch keys with—Icould not help thinking—a desperate intentness.

But it was Helen who broke first. She was atremble with emotion as shereached forward and stayed Hank's fingers on the studs, stayed our madvoyage in what was, by now, the almost pleasant grayness of the void.And, "Hank!" she cried. "No more, Hank! Oh, please, no more! I can'tstand it. Not without knowing where we are, what these places are, whatit all means...."

Hank took his hands from the controls reluctantly. For a long moment hestudied us. Then,

"I should think you'd understand by now," he said. "I been tryin' to'splain it to you all along. What we been seein' is just a fraction o'them other possible worlds I was talkin' about. These are the worldsthat might o' been!"

CHAPTER IV

"A Stitch in Time"

"M-might have been?" I repeated.

I didn't say it just like that, I guess. I said it more like,"M-m-m-might have b-b-been?" All right, so my teeth were chattering! Sowhat? So maybe it was cold; how do you know?

Hank said woefully, "There's millions of 'em, mebbe billions. Mebbetrillions; I dunno. I was just 'sperimentin', tryin' to find whichcourse this here machine took—if any—so I'd know—"

Helen's eyes were deep with surmise. She said, "Do you mean, Hank, thatany of these different existences might have been the history of theUnited States if other things had happened?"

"Might have been," agreed Hank, "and is. You gotta get that clear inyour minds. These places is just as real to the people in 'em as ourworld is to us. If we was to try to tell 'em about our civilization,they'd think we was nuts. Because things took a different twist forthem, and they got a way of livin' which don't even conceive of ourways."

"And I can't conceive of their ways!" I interrupted flatly. "Hank,this is going too far! You admit we've been in the United States—allright, 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 tonguesspoken—"

Hank scratched his head.

"Well, now, Jim, I guess you know I'm not what you mought call ascholar. But I done read up a leetle bit about hist'ry. An' it 'pearsto me like all them things we seen could o' happened, if things hadtooken jest the littlest bit of shift somewheres in the past.

"Take that first city we seen, f'rninstance. Kinda funny, accordin' toAmerican standards, I'll admit. But suppose the Greek Empire hadn'tnever fell? Ain't it plausible to figger as how maybe some day theexpandin' Greeks might o' colonized America? They was a sea-farin'people, you know—an' great lovers o' beauty, Art and the socialgraces. But they was rotten bad scientists, f'r the most part. Seems tome like their civilization woulda reached a high peak, then never gotno higher...."

Helen, her fears assuaged by a reasonable explanation, nodded vehementagreement.

"He's right, Jim. And those women were talking in Greek—or at leasta modified form of it. I remember, now, a few words—"

"Them other guys," mused Hank, "them sojers, seems like they mought o'been Romans. They was great ones to let the conquered people work thefields for them, an' I noticed they had the Injuns on W.P.A.

"But all them guys talking Dutch—I can't figger that. It ain'treasonable to suppose it would be on account of if Germany had won thefirst World War. Even if they did, they couldn't o' made the UnitedStates talk German an' act German in twenty-five years!"

For once I knew more than Hank Cleaver! I gloried in my little instant.

"I'll bet I know what 'moment in history' made that existence possible!Back around the time of 1776, Hank, the fathers of the infant UnitedStates gathered to decide which language should be the official tongueof their new nation. The choice was a toss-up between English andGerman. English became the official language of our country by the slimmargin of one vote—cast by a German-American who based his decisionon the belief that English was the more pliable tongue!"

Hank smacked his hands together. "That's it, by gum! Purty nigh has tobe! Now you see whut a diff'rence one little incident makes? If thatman had voted f'r his native tongue, this country woulda become a lazy,self-contained Tootonic colony, 'stead of an up-an'-at-'em, commercialsea-power. An' them other places we seen—"

It was easy now that we understood the system.

"Gas lights," supplied Helen, "if Spencer Tracy—I mean ThomasEdison—hadn't been fired from his job as candy-butcher on therailroad." "America a French colony," I suggested, "if Napoleon hadn'tbeen defeated at Waterloo. He had designs on us, you know. That's whyhe placed Maximilian in Mexico—"

"A powerful priesthood governing the world," broke in Helen again."Would that be the Papal State? Or could it have been—Atlantis? Ifthat island had not sunk?"

"That there 'C.S.A.' had me stumped f'r a minute," said Hank, "but Igot it now. That stands f'r the 'Confederate States of America!' IfPickett had come up at Gettysburg!"

"But that other world of 'might-have-been'?" I demanded eagerly. "Themost awe-inspiring one we saw? The one where giant spacecraft lay intheir cradles? What could that have sprung from?"

There was silence for a moment. Then Hank queried, "Did either o' youhappen to notice the name o' that port?"

Helen said, "I—I'm not exactly sure, but I thought it was the daVinciSpaceport—"

"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 blewhis nose or stubbed his toe or done somethin' he didn't do in ourhist'ry—an' as a result, he succeeded in doin' whut he never donein our time, though he spent half his life atryin' to. He inventedaircraft.

"Which give man a flyin' start o' four hundred years or so over wherehe is in our universe. So that in the mebbe world which sprung fromdaVinci's accident, man has learned how to navee-gate space."

Well, that was all very well. I suppose I was getting an education inco*ckeyed history that Beard or Gibbon or any tome-pedant would haveswapped his eyeteeth for. But I'm not the kind of guy who exists onbrain-food alone. I've got a hollow, pear-shaped bulb a few inchessouth of my diaphragm, and regularly, about six times a day, thisaforesaid vacancy declares itself ready, willing and able to take careof a few pecks of assorted groceries.

A mild attack of looseness around the belt reminded me that thiswas one of those times. I said, "Talking about space, Hank, that'swhat I've got the most of in my stomach. What say we tool thisperiod-perambulating push-cart up to an 'ought-to-have-been' café andgive the inner man something to think about?"

Helen nodded approval to my idea.

"I could use a little food myself, Hank."

Hank wet his lips. "J-jim—" he faltered.

"Now, look, pal," I declared firmly, "I know you're having a goodtime. This sort of thing is right up your pet alley. But have a littleconsideration for your passengers. All Helen and I want is victuals,and we'll travel with you from here to the universe where Adam didn'teat the apple—right, Helen? A round trip for a square meal; that's afair exchange, isn't it?"

Hank said, "Jim—Helen—whut I got to say ain't nice. From the minutewe 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 alsoworried. You see, like Jim oughta realize atter he couldn't grab aholto' that likker bottle—we can't eat or drink while we're travelin' inthis 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 realexistence to these other worlds, nor they to us. I'm afraid I went intoa sort of panic, then. I said, "Then we've got to get back to our owntime, Hank, or we'll starve to death!"

Hank said miserably, "But that's jest it, Jim—how are we gonna gitback to our own Time? We don't know where it is. Like I awready said,we seem to be travelin' sideways across a billion possible Times. An'since I didn't get the temporal grapple installed, like I planned tobefore Helen—"

He stopped. But Helen had caught the implication of his words. Shecried suddenly, "It's all my fault! Because I thought I knew it all,Hank, I've let us in for this. Oh, I wish I'd never tried to be sosmart—"

"That's a woman for you!" I grunted disconsolately. "Better late thanclever! Hell, Hank—you mean we're doomed to sit here in nothing,looking at worlds of food and liquid, until we check out frommalnutrition?"

Hank said staunchly, "We ain't gonna give up that easy, Jim. We'regonna keep on tryin'. Mebbe by plain dumb luck I can work us back toour own proper place in Time."

And thus we started anew our time-hopping. Hank's fingers went towork on the cryptic studs and keys. Again we became the wraithlikevisitants of fourscore and umpteen odd, incredible worlds. We saw onein which great bearded Norsem*n ruled America ... another in whichthe Union Jack flapped above the docks of a great sea-port ... dozensupon dozens of Americas we saw, and each of them was, by some guess,quite plausible and logical. Had Leif the Lucky's colony not been wipedout by the pox ... had the Sons of Liberty not roused the coloniststo rebellion against George III ... had Aaron Burr not duelled andkilled Hamilton ... had Columbus not believed himself headed toward theIndies....

Hank's brow was as smooth as a corrugated washboard by now, andthere was nervous haste to even his customarily placid fingers as hecontinued to press our shimmering buggy forward along the transverselines of maybe.

"It ain't logical!" he moaned once, softly. "Even if they isdiff'rent circ*mstances, they oughta spring from each other outacertain points. Like the pictures you see of fam'ly trees, orgenee-ologies. But we ain't getting nowhere an' we ain't gettin' therefast!"

Meanwhile, I was getting hungrier by the minute. I don't know why itis, but there's nothing will make a man want to eat more than theknowledge that the cupboard is bare. My thoughts were not nearly soconcerned with the wonders I was viewing than with visions of ten-inchT-bone steaks smothered in mushrooms ... roast fowl ... cranberry sauceand gravy ... fried country ham with apples ... things like that.

And the drink question was even more acute. After all, we had beencaged up in our little egg, now, for several hours. We were beginningto feel puh-lenty thirsty, and our desire for water was not lessened bythe thought that it was impossible to get any.

That's when it began to seem to me that everywhere we visited, food anddrink were prominently displayed. Once we landed in the middle of agigantic banquet-hall. Tables groaned with dainties fit for a king—andsure enough, there was a king seated at the head of the table! He was amighty sick-looking king, though, when he laid eyes on us! He let loosea howl in what Helen claimed was modified Spanish, and dived under thetable. We left hastily, before his Kingship should leave his subjectskingless.

I've often wondered, since, how many legends sprang from ourvisitations. There must have been hundreds of wild stories told byIndians, Frenchmen, Englishmen, Spaniards and Dutch who saw a shadowyegg with three wraiths in it appear suddenly out of nowhere, and asquickly disappear.

It was probably because of this that Hank turned to me, finally, with apledge.

"Tell you one thing, Jim," he said earnestly. "If we get outa thishere now mess, the fust thing I'm gonna do is bust this machine into amillion pieces. I done learned a lesson. It ain't right to go messin'around in things like this when you can't control 'em perfect. It justain'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. Yousee, 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'tdo no good for a man to slide sideways through Time, because whut helearns ain't of no consequence to him in his Time, an' just disturbsthe folks he meets. So after this, I'm gonna confine myself to tryin'to improve the affairs o' the world we do live in—

"Hey! What was that?"

I had heard it, too. I stared at him wildly. "It sounded like—likesomebody calling your name!" I said doubtfully.

"That's whut I thought!" yelled Hank. "Listen—it's a voice, comin'closer!"

We all heard it plainly now. A voice calling curiously, pleadingly,through the gray mists that engulfed us.

"Hank! Oh, Hank Cleaver! Where are you?"

We all yelled. And what I mean, we yelled loud!

And then, out of the formless veil, came a shimmer of light. A nebuloussomething that grew more solid, became more and more sharply visibleas our cries attracted it, and finally coalesced into—

Our own time-machine! With us sitting in it!

CHAPTER V

The Time Twins

It's funny how, in moments of stress, dejection, or great elation, yourmind will focus upon some tiny, relatively unimportant point.

I should have been whooping with joy to look upon a set of familiarfaces, even though those faces were our own. But do you know, my firstconscious reaction was one of rage? And why? Because, naturally, thefirst guy I looked at was myself—and there I was, sitting in thatother ship, calmly munching on a great big rosy apple!

I said, "Why, you damn glutton! You ought to be ashamed! I've got halfa notion to—"

I grinned at me ... I mean, he grinned at me ... or I mean I grinnedat he ... oh, hell, you know what I mean! The other Jim Blakesongrinned at me and said, "What's the fuss, pal? Hungry? We figured youmight be. Here, catch!"

And he tossed the remainder of his apple at me. I clutched at itgreedily. But of course it fell right into and through my graspingfingers, through my lap and the base of the time-ship, and into theemptiness below. I've often wondered what became of that apple. At thatparticular moment, we had just lifted ourselves from a weird Americawhere the ruling class was made up of magicians, necromancers andstudents of demonology. I've often wondered if the apple came tumblingout of the sky to smack some son of a witch on the head.

Then the other Hank leaned forward and yelled to our Hank. "Got heresoon as I could, Cleaver. I had to get the machine finished proper sothey wouldn't be no mess this time!"

And our Hank nodded. "Figgered as much," he replied. "Kinda thoughtyou'd come atter us, but I didn't know whether you'd find us or not.How'd you trail us?"

Hank Number 2 looked sort of modest. He said, "Why, I had to fix up anew type o' gadget. 'Peared like since me an' you was almost identicalthe same person, so to speak, we ought to have sort of psychic bonds.You know, like this E.S.P. they talk about? So I whipped up a psychictrailer an'—an' it seemed to work right well."

If I had needed any further proof that these Hanks were, fundamentally,the same person, I had it now. Both of them were 'scientific pioneers'.They had a native, inborn ability to create, seemingly at a moment'snotice, gadgets of such scientific scope that no other man would havebelieved them possible. But neither of them could ever give a plain,coherent reason as to how their invention worked or why they had daredthink it would work in the first place!

My Hank accepted the statement as if it were quite commonplace.

"Nice goin'!" he said calmly. "You gonna lead us back where we belong?"

The other Hank shook his head.

"It's a leetle more complicated than that," he demurred. "I beenfiggerin' it out, an' it works oney up to a certain point. You see, Ic'n oney take you back to where I was where I fust seen you. If I takeyou back to your place, I don't exist. But you do exist in my place,because you was in it once, see? So—"

"Mmm-hmm!" nodded our Hank gravely. And he glanced at Helen and mespeculatively. "Did you tell them the rest of it?"

"Why, no, I didn't. I figgered whut they don't know won't disturb 'em.O' course there'll be a leetle bit o' confusion at first, but—"

"What," demanded both Helens simultaneously, "are you two talkingabout?"

The query silenced both Hanks suddenly. Then Hank Number 2 said, "Well,come on. Follow me. I'll go slow an' call the stud settin's for youso's you can follow. One-oh-four—"

"One-oh-four!" repeated our Hank dutifully, and he pushed a button. Sooff we went again!

Even I could see that this time our journey was a shorter, more directand more logical one than the haphazard voyage on which our incompletetime-machine had borne us. I began to recognize a certain form, acertain coherence, to the unfolding "historic" or pseudo-historic stopswe made from time to time to check our course.

Out of the scramble of heterogeneous possibilities we merged intoa "history" which was based on certain fundamentals every Americanschoolchild knows. We left those impossible Americas where foreignnations ruled, settled into a background approximating that I wasaccustomed to. There were still differences. Once we bumped into apolitical meeting of a party known as the "Bull Moose"; Helen said,"Why, I remember reading about that party! Theodore Roosevelt—"

"In 1912," finished the other Helen. "We must be getting close, Hank."

"Yes, sweety-pie," said our Hank abstractedly, and blushed a brilliantcrimson as he saw our Helen glare at him.

We had one frightening experience. We came to a Time wherein we lookedout upon our little college town—we had set the positional stops bynow, and were hovering above the possibilities of that place—to findit a smouldering pile of wreckage and ruin. We were so horrified bythis that we had to stop and discover the reason. It took some littledoing, but finally we succeeded in learning the whole story. Thisdesolate scene was my fault!

In one of my possible existences I had made the horrible mistake ofpaying my favorite tailor the money I owed him. Overcome by thisunexpected fortune, he had gone out on a big drunk. As a result, he hadcome home and set his shop on fire. The fire, getting swiftly out ofcontrol, had laid the entire city to ruin, killing hundreds and makingthousands homeless.

My double and I shuddered when we heard this awful tragedy. Helenshuddered, too, and stared at me severely.

"Let that be a lesson to you, Jim Blakeson! Never run up bills likethat again!"

"It is a lesson," I promised her. "I swear I will never pay anytradesman every cent I owe him so long as I live!"

And then, finally, the last stud had been pressed, the last instructiongiven and taken. And for the final time our two ships were hovering inthe gray mists which are above Time's passageways, and our two pilotswere preparing for the move which they seemed to believe would solveour 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' atthe 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?"

"Oney way I c'n see. We got to make a merger—"

"A what?" I yelled, sitting bolt upright.

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' ourselvesin the other ship is almost identical. Within five minutes or so ofeach other we got the same brains, mem'ries an' bodies.

"It's absolutely impossible for us here in this car to ever get back toexactly the sitchyation we left. Because under them circ*mstances,the ship wasn't never completed.

"So we got to do the next best thing. That is, we got to merge withourselves an' become the same person again except that we will neverhave made this trip? Get it?"

"If I do," I howled wildly, "I'm crazy—and if I don't, I'm crazyanyhow. I lose whether I win or lose. But if you think I'm going tobecome part of that silly-looking ape over there—"

The other me was howling with equal frenzy. "Silly-looking apeyourself! Let me out of here, Hank! I'm not going to let him be partof me—"

And the two Helens were squawking, too. Neither of them entirelyfancied the other. Now both began yammering at the same time. The twoHanks looked at each other. And our Hank said, "Now?"

"Now!" said the other Hank.

I saw the two machines drifting together. I cried aloud. I felt thehulls contact ... then there came a moment of brilliant dizziness ... ajolting sense of concussion ... and a prickling sense of motion....

Helen eyed with disdain the wavering, nebulous egg-shaped machinestanding before us. "And what," she demanded, "do you call this?"

"It—it's a time-machine, honey," said Hank. Then a strange look dawnedin his eyes. "Hey!" he said. "Hey—it worked!"

I couldn't answer him. Because momentarily I was a riot of mentalconfusion. My thoughts were so wild, and so chaotic, that they simplydidn't make sense. Here I was, Jim Blakeson, standing in a room beforeHank Cleaver's brand-new time-machine. Helen had just entered the rooma moment ago. And yet—and yet my memory told me that hours had passedin this room, and that Helen and Hank and I had not only talked aboutthe machine, but had stepped into it, had gone places in it, seenincredible things....

Then it all came back to me in a flash. Just as it came back to Helenand Hank. And the three of us stood there like wide-eyed cretins,trying to arrange our minds to fit an impossible situation.

It was Helen who spoke first. She moaned weakly,

"I—I'm her, now!"

"And if you're her," I quavered, "I'm him! What a mess! I'm that heelwho was eating the apple ... I mean, I'm that wise-cracking guy who washungry ... I mean, I'm both of me!"

Only Hank retained a vestige of self-control. He put his arms aroundHelen, placed one warm hand on my shoulder. "Now, don't git all het up,Jim. You're both of 'em—that's right. But it don't make no diff'rence,you see, because the time lapse was so small. Atter the merger webecame both ourselves, which was lost in Time, an' ourselves which,atter seein' ourselves, went out an' rescued us. Do you understand?"

"Only too well," I moaned. "I understand that the biggest mistake of mylife was finding you in that Westville turnip-patch. Oh, if I'd onlyleft you there—"

I tottered toward the medicine cabinet. It was after I groped for themissing bottle that I remembered having handed it to me and breakingit before. I buried my face in my hands, clinging tightly to onereassuring sanity in a mad world. At least I had only one personalhistory up to a few minutes ago!

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'magonna do it, too, afore my good intentions weaken. It's too dangerousf'r a man to have around. Seein' other time-possibilities, experiencin'twin memories—" He stopped suddenly, stared at us. "Twin memories: theideers 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. I wonder ifmaybe somehow or other them poor guys ain't just fellers which somehowor other managed to git shunted off their own proper time-track intoanother one? An' got their personalities so balled up that they goplumb loco tryin' to straighten 'em out again? It could be. It'slogical enough...."

I groaned and lurched out.

Behind me boomed the merry clank of metal on metal. Hank was cheerfullydismantling his machine. He had already chosen to forget our recentadventure. Tomorrow was another day. Tomorrow he would be off on stillanother dark quest down the mysterious byways of law and logic.

And why not? For he was the scientific pioneer—Horsesense Hank. Andwho ever heard of a horse with nerves?

[1] For previous adventures of "Horsesense Hank" Cleaver, seeissues of Amazing Stories ... March and November, 1940, May,1942.—Ed.

[2] Narcissus, according to legend, was a youth so infatuatedwith his own appearance that he spent all his time admiring his ownreflection in a pool of water.