TIME AND TIME AGAIN

 BY H. BEAM PIPER

 Illustrated by Napoli

[Transcriber's note: This etext was produced from Astounding ScienceFiction April 1947. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe copyright on this publication was renewed. ]

 _To upset the stable, mighty stream of time would probably take an enormous concentration of energy. And it's not to be expected that a man would get a second chance at life. But an atomic might accomplish both--_

Blinded by the bomb-flash and numbed by the narcotic injection, he couldnot estimate the extent of his injuries, but he knew that he was dying. Around him, in the darkness, voices sounded as through a thick wall. 

"They mighta left mosta these Joes where they was. Half of them won'teven last till the truck comes. "

"No matter; so long as they're alive, they must be treated, " anothervoice, crisp and cultivated, rebuked. "Better start taking names, whilewe're waiting. "

"Yes, sir. " Fingers fumbled at his identity badge. "Hartley, Allan;Captain, G5, Chem. Research AN/73/D. Serial, SO-23869403J. "

"Allan Hartley!" The medic officer spoke in shocked surprise. "Why, he'sthe man who wrote 'Children of the Mist', 'Rose of Death', and'Conqueror's Road'!"

He tried to speak, and must have stirred; the corpsman's voicesharpened. 

"Major, I think he's part conscious. Mebbe I better give him 'nothershot. "

"Yes, yes; by all means, sergeant. "

Something jabbed Allan Hartley in the back of the neck. Soft billows ofoblivion closed in upon him, and all that remained to him was a tinyspark of awareness, glowing alone and lost in a great darkness. 

 * * * * *

The Spark grew brighter. He was more than a something that merely knewthat it existed. He was a man, and he had a name, and a military rank, and memories. Memories of the searing blue-green flash, and of what hehad been doing outside the shelter the moment before, and memories ofthe month-long siege, and of the retreat from the north, and memories ofthe days before the War, back to the time when he had been little AllanHartley, a schoolboy, the son of a successful lawyer, in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. 

His mother he could not remember; there was only a vague impression ofthe house full of people who had tried to comfort him for something hecould not understand. But he remembered the old German woman who hadkept house for his father, afterward, and he remembered his bedroom, with its chintz-covered chairs, and the warm-colored patch quilt on theold cherry bed, and the tan curtains at the windows, edged with duskyred, and the morning sun shining through them. He could almost see them, now. 

He blinked. He _could_ see them!

 * * * * *

For a long time, he lay staring at them unbelievingly, and then hedeliberately closed his eyes and counted ten seconds, and as he counted, terror gripped him. He was afraid to open them again, lest he findhimself blind, or gazing at the filth and wreckage of a blasted city, but when he reached ten, he forced himself to look, and gave a sigh ofrelief. The sunlit curtains and the sun-gilded mist outside were stillthere. 

He reached out to check one sense against another, feeling the roughmonk's cloth and the edging of maroon silk thread. They were tangible aswell as visible. Then he saw that the back of his hand was unscarred. There should have been a scar, souvenir of a rough-and-tumble brawl ofhis cub reporter days. He examined both hands closely. An instant later, he had sat up in bed and thrown off the covers, partially removing hispajamas and inspecting as much of his body as was visible. 

It was the smooth body of a little boy. 

That was ridiculous. He was a man of forty-three; an army officer, achemist, once a best-selling novelist. He had been married, and divorcedten years ago. He looked again at his body. It was only twelve yearsold. Fourteen, at the very oldest. His eyes swept the room, wide withwonder. Every detail was familiar: the flower-splashed chair covers; thetable that served as desk and catch-all for his possessions; thedresser, with its mirror stuck full of pictures of aircraft. It was thebedroom of his childhood home. He swung his legs over the edge of thebed. They were six inches too short to reach the floor. 

For an instant, the room spun dizzily; and he was in the grip of utterpanic, all confidence in the evidence of his senses lost. Was he insane?Or delirious? Or had the bomb really killed him; was this what death waslike? What was that thing, about "ye become as little children"? Hestarted to laugh, and his juvenile larynx made giggling sounds. Theyseemed funny, too, and aggravated his mirth. For a little while, he wason the edge of hysteria and then, when he managed to control hislaughter, he felt calmer. If he were dead, then he must be a discarnateentity, and would be able to penetrate matter. To his relief, he wasunable to push his hand through the bed. So he was alive; he was alsofully awake, and, he hoped, rational. He rose to his feet and prowledabout the room, taking stock of its contents. 

There was no calendar in sight, and he could find no newspapers or datedperiodicals, but he knew that it was prior to July 18, 1946. On thatday, his fourteenth birthday, his father had given him a light . 22rifle, and it had been hung on a pair of rustic forks on the wall. Itwas not there now, nor ever had been. On the table, he saw a boys' bookof military aircraft, with a clean, new dustjacket; the flyleaf wasinscribed: _To Allan Hartley, from his father, on his thirteenthbirthday, 7/18 '45. _ Glancing out the window at the foliage on thetrees, he estimated the date at late July or early August, 1945; thatwould make him just thirteen. 

His clothes were draped on a chair beside the bed. Stripping off hispajamas, he donned shorts, then sat down and picked up a pair oflemon-colored socks, which he regarded with disfavor. As he pulled oneon, a church bell began to clang. St. Boniface, up on the hill, ringingfor early Mass; so this was Sunday. He paused, the second sock in hishand. 

There was no question that his present environment was actual. Yet, onthe other hand, he possessed a set of memories completely at variancewith it. Now, suppose, since his environment were not an illusion, everything else were? Suppose all these troublesome memories were nomore than a dream? Why, he was just little Allan Hartley, safe in hisroom on a Sunday morning, badly scared by a nightmare! Too much sciencefiction, Allan; too many comic books!

That was a wonderfully comforting thought, and he hugged it to himcontentedly. It lasted all the while he was buttoning up his shirt andpulling on his pants, but when he reached for his shoes, it evaporated. Ever since he had wakened, he realized, he had been occupied withthoughts utterly incomprehensible to any thirteen-year-old; eventhinking in words that would have been so much Sanscrit to himself atthirteen. He shook his head regretfully. The just-a-dream hypothesiswent by the deep six. 

He picked up the second shoe and glared at it as though it wereresponsible for his predicament. He was going to have to be careful. Anunexpected display of adult characteristics might give rise to somequestions he would find hard to answer credibly. Fortunately, he was anonly child; there would be no brothers or sisters to trip him up. OldMrs. Stauber, the housekeeper, wouldn't be much of a problem; even inhis normal childhood, he had bulked like an intellectual giant incomparison to her. But his father--

Now, there the going would be tough. He knew that shrewd attorney'smind, whetted keen on a generation of lying and reluctant witnesses. Sooner or later, he would forget for an instant and betray himself. Thenhe smiled, remembering the books he had discovered, in his late 'teens, on his father's shelves and recalling the character of the openmindedagnostic lawyer. If he could only avoid the inevitable unmasking untilhe had a plausible explanatory theory. 

 * * * * *

Blake Hartley was leaving the bathroom as Allan Hartley opened his doorand stepped into the hall. The lawyer was bare-armed and in slippers; atforty-eight, there was only a faint powdering of gray in his dark hair, and not a gray thread in his clipped mustache. The old Merry Widower, himself, Allan thought, grinning as he remembered the white-haired butstill vigorous man from whom he'd parted at the outbreak of the War. 

"'Morning, Dad, " he greeted. 

"'Morning, son. You're up early. Going to Sunday school?"

Now there was the advantage of a father who'd cut his first intellectualtooth on Tom Paine and Bob Ingersoll; attendance at divine services wason a strictly voluntary basis. 

"Why, I don't think so; I want to do some reading, this morning. "

"That's always a good thing to do, " Blake Hartley approved. "Afterbreakfast, suppose you take a walk down to the station and get me a_Times_. " He dug in his trouser pocket and came out with a half dollar. "Get anything you want for yourself, while you're at it. "

Allan thanked his father and pocketed the coin. 

"Mrs. Stauber'll still be at Mass, " he suggested. "Say I get the papernow; breakfast won't be ready till she gets here. "

"Good idea. " Blake Hartley nodded, pleased. "You'll have three-quartersof an hour, at least. "

 * * * * *

So far, he congratulated himself, everything had gone smoothly. Finishing his toilet, he went downstairs and onto the street, turningleft at Brandon to Campbell, and left again in the direction of thestation. Before he reached the underpass, a dozen half-forgottenmemories had revived. Here was a house that would, in a few years, begutted by fire. Here were four dwellings standing where he had last seena five-story apartment building. A gasoline station and a weed-grown lotwould shortly be replaced by a supermarket. The environs of the stationitself were a complete puzzle to him, until he oriented himself. 

He bought a New York _Times_, glancing first of all at the date line. Sunday, August 5, 1945; he'd estimated pretty closely. The battle ofOkinawa had been won. The Potsdam Conference had just ended. There werestill pictures of the B-25 crash against the Empire State Building, aweek ago Saturday. And Japan was still being pounded by bombs from theair and shells from off-shore naval guns. Why, tomorrow, Hiroshima wasdue for the Big Job! It amused him to reflect that he was probably theonly person in Williamsport who knew that. 

On the way home, a boy, sitting on the top step of a front porch, hailedhim. Allan replied cordially, trying to remember who it was. Of course;Larry Morton! He and Allan had been buddies. They probably had beenswimming, or playing Commandos and Germans, the afternoon before. Larryhad gone to Cornell the same year that Allan had gone to Penn State;they had both graduated in 1954. Larry had gotten into some Governmentbureau, and then he had married a Pittsburgh girl, and had becometwelfth vice-president of her father's firm. He had been killed, in1968, in a plane crash. 

"You gonna Sunday school?" Larry asked, mercifully unaware of the fateAllan foresaw for him. 

"Why, no. I have some things I want to do at home. " He'd have to watchhimself. Larry would spot a difference quicker than any adult. "Heckwith it, " he added. 

"Golly, I wisht I c'ld stay home from Sunday school whenever I wantedto, " Larry envied. "How about us goin' swimmin', at the Canoe Club, 'safter?"

Allan thought fast. "Gee, I wisht I c'ld, " he replied, lowering hisgrammatical sights. "I gotta stay home, 'safter. We're expectin'comp'ny; coupla aunts of mine. Dad wants me to stay home when theycome. "

That went over all right. Anybody knew that there was no rationalaccounting for the vagaries of the adult mind, and no appeal from adultdemands. The prospect of company at the Hartley home would keep Larryaway, that afternoon. He showed his disappointment. 

"Aw, jeepers creepers!" he blasphemed euphemistically. 

"Mebbe t'morrow, " Allan said. "If I c'n make it. I gotta go, now; ain'thad breakfast yet. " He scuffed his feet boyishly, exchanged so-longswith his friend, and continued homeward. 

 * * * * *

As he had hoped, the Sunday paper kept his father occupied at breakfast, to the exclusion of any dangerous table talk. Blake Hartley was stilldeep in the financial section when Allan left the table and went to thelibrary. There should be two books there to which he wanted badly torefer. For a while, he was afraid that his father had not acquired themprior to 1945, but he finally found them, and carried them onto thefront porch, along with a pencil and a ruled yellow scratch pad. In hisexperienced future--or his past-to-come--Allan Hartley had beenaccustomed to doing his thinking with a pencil. As reporter, as novelistplotting his work, as amateur chemist in his home laboratory, asscientific warfare research officer, his ideas had always been clarifiedby making notes. He pushed a chair to the table and built up the seatwith cushions, wondering how soon he would become used to theproportional disparity between himself and the furniture. As he openedthe books and took his pencil in his hand, there was one thing missing. If he could only smoke a pipe, now!

His father came out and stretched in a wicker chair with the _Times_book-review section. The morning hours passed. Allan Hartley leafedthrough one book and then the other. His pencil moved rapidly at times;at others, he doodled absently. There was no question, any more, in hismind, as to what or who he was. He was Allan Hartley, a man offorty-three, marooned in his own thirteen-year-old body, thirty yearsback in his own past. That was, of course, against all common sense, buthe was easily able to ignore that objection. It had been made before:against the astronomy of Copernicus, and the geography of Columbus, andthe biology of Darwin, and the industrial technology of Samuel Colt, andthe military doctrines of Charles de Gaulle. Today's common sense had ahabit of turning into tomorrow's utter nonsense. What he needed, rightnow, but bad, was a theory that would explain what had happened to him. 

Understanding was beginning to dawn when Mrs. Stauber came out toannounce midday dinner. 

"I hope you von't mind haffin' it so early, " she apologized. "Meinsister, Jennie, offer in Nippenose, she iss sick; I vant to go see her, dis afternoon, yet. I'll be back in blenty time to get supper, Mr. Hartley. "

"Hey, Dad!" Allan spoke up. "Why can't we get our own supper, and have apicnic, like? That'd be fun, and Mrs. Stauber could stay as long as shewanted to. "

His father looked at him. Such consideration for others was a mostgratifying deviation from the juvenile norm; dawn of altruism, orsomething. He gave hearty assent:

"Why, of course, Mrs. Stauber. Allan and I can shift for ourselves, thisevening; can't we, Allan? You needn't come back till tomorrow morning. "

"_Ach_, t'ank you! T'ank you so mooch, Mr. Hartley. "

At dinner, Allan got out from under the burden of conversation byquestioning his father about the War and luring him into a lengthydissertation on the difficulties of the forthcoming invasion of Japan. In view of what he remembered of the next twenty-four hours, Allan wassecretly amused. His father was sure that the War would run on tomid-1946. 

After dinner, they returned to the porch, Hartley _père_ smoking a cigarand carrying out several law books. He only glanced at theseoccasionally; for the most part, he sat and blew smoke rings, andwatched them float away. Some thrice-guilty felon was about to betriumphantly acquitted by a weeping jury; Allan could recognize acourtroom masterpiece in the process of incubation. 

 * * * * *

It was several hours later that the crunch of feet on the walk causedfather and son to look up simultaneously. The approaching visitor was atall man in a rumpled black suit; he had knobby wrists and big, awkwardhands; black hair flecked with gray, and a harsh, bigoted face. Allanremembered him. Frank Gutchall. Lived on Campbell Street; a religiousfanatic, and some sort of lay preacher. Maybe he needed legal advice;Allan could vaguely remember some incident--

"Ah, good afternoon, Mr. Gutchall. Lovely day, isn't it?" Blake Hartleysaid. 

Gutchall cleared his throat. "Mr. Hartley, I wonder if you could lend mea gun and some bullets, " he began, embarrassedly. "My little dog's beenhurt, and it's suffering something terrible. I want a gun, to put thepoor thing out of its pain. "

"Why, yes; of course. How would a 20-gauge shotgun do?" Blake Hartleyasked. "You wouldn't want anything heavy. "

Gutchall fidgeted. "Why, er, I was hoping you'd let me have a littlegun. " He held his hands about six inches apart. "A pistol, that I couldput in my pocket. It wouldn't look right, to carry a hunting gun on theLord's day; people wouldn't understand that it was for a work of mercy. "

The lawyer nodded. In view of Gutchall's religious beliefs, theobjection made sense. 

"Well, I have a Colt . 38-special, " he said, "but you know, I belong tothis Auxiliary Police outfit. If I were called out for duty, thisevening, I'd need it. How soon could you bring it back?"

Something clicked in Allan Hartley's mind. He remembered, now, what thatincident had been. He knew, too, what he had to do. 

"Dad, aren't there some cartridges left for the Luger?" he asked. 

Blake Hartley snapped his fingers. "By George, yes! I have a Germanautomatic I can let you have, but I wish you'd bring it back as soon aspossible. I'll get it for you. "

Before he could rise, Allan was on his feet. 

"Sit still, Dad; I'll get it. I know where the cartridges are. " Withthat, he darted into the house and upstairs. 

The Luger hung on the wall over his father's bed. Getting it down, hedismounted it, working with rapid precision. He used the blade of hispocketknife to unlock the endpiece of the breechblock, slipping out thefiring pin and buttoning it into his shirt pocket. Then he reassembledthe harmless pistol, and filled the clip with 9-millimeter cartridgesfrom the bureau drawer. 

There was an extension telephone beside the bed. Finding Gutchall'saddress in the directory, he lifted the telephone, and stretched hishandkerchief over the mouthpiece. Then he dialed Police Headquarters. 

[Illustration]

"This is Blake Hartley, " he lied, deepening his voice and copying hisfather's tone. "Frank Gutchall, who lives at. .. Take this down"--he gaveGutchall's address--"has just borrowed a pistol from me, ostensibly toshoot a dog. He has no dog. He intends shooting his wife. Don't argueabout how I know; there isn't time. Just take it for granted that I do. I disabled the pistol--took out the firing pin--but if he finds out whatI did, he may get some other weapon. He's on his way home, but he's onfoot. If you hurry, you may get a man there before he arrives, and grabhim before he finds out the pistol won't shoot. "

"O. K. , Mr. Hartley. We'll take care of it. Thanks. "

"And I wish you'd get my pistol back, as soon as you can. It's somethingI brought home from the other War, and I shouldn't like to lose it. "

"We'll take care of that, too. Thank you, Mr. Hartley. "

He hung up, and carried the Luger and the loaded clip down to the porch. 

 * * * * *

"Look, Mr. Gutchall; here's how it works, " he said, showing it to thevisitor. Then he slapped in the clip and yanked up on the toggle loadingthe chamber. "It's ready to shoot, now; this is the safety. " He pushedit on. "When you're ready to shoot, just shove it forward and up, andthen pull the trigger. You have to pull the trigger each time; it'sloaded for eight shots. And be sure to put the safety back when you'rethrough shooting. "

"Did you load the chamber?" Blake Hartley demanded. 

"Sure. It's on safe, now. "

"Let me see. " His father took the pistol, being careful to keep hisfinger out of the trigger guard, and looked at it. "Yes, that's allright. " He repeated the instructions Allan had given, stressing theimportance of putting the safety on after using. "Understand how itworks, now?" he asked. 

"Yes, I understand how it works. Thank you, Mr. Hartley. Thank you, too, young man. "

Gutchall put the Luger in his hip pocket, made sure it wouldn't fallout, and took his departure. 

"You shouldn't have loaded it, " Hartley _père_ reproved, when he wasgone. 

Allan sighed. This was it; the masquerade was over. 

"I had to, to keep you from fooling with it, " he said. "I didn't wantyou finding out that I'd taken out the firing pin. "

"You what?"

"Gutchall didn't want that gun to shoot a dog. He has no dog. He meantto shoot his wife with it. He's a religious maniac; sees visions, hearsvoices, receives revelations, talks with the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghostprobably put him up to this caper. I'll submit that any man who holdslong conversations with the Deity isn't to be trusted with a gun, andneither is any man who lies about why he wants one. And while I was atit, I called the police, on the upstairs phone. I had to use your name;I deepened my voice and talked through a handkerchief. "

"You--" Blake Hartley jumped as though bee-stung. "Why did you have todo that?"

"You know why. I couldn't have told them, 'This is little Allan Hartley, just thirteen years old; please, Mr. Policeman, go and arrest FrankGutchall before he goes root-toot-toot at his wife with my pappa'sLuger. ' That would have gone over big, now, wouldn't it?"

"And suppose he really wants to shoot a dog; what sort of a mess will Ibe in?"

"No mess at all. If I'm wrong--which I'm not--I'll take the thump forit, myself. It'll pass for a dumb kid trick, and nothing'll be done. Butif I'm right, you'll have to front for me. They'll keep your name out ofit, but they'd give me a lot of cheap boy-hero publicity, which I don'twant. " He picked up his pencil again. "We should have the completereturns in about twenty minutes. "

 * * * * *

That was a ten-minute under-estimate, and it was another quarter-hourbefore the detective-sergeant who returned the Luger had finishedcongratulating Blake Hartley and giving him the thanks of theDepartment. After he had gone, the lawyer picked up the Luger, withdrewthe clip, and ejected the round in the chamber. 

"Well, " he told his son, "you were right. You saved that woman's life. "He looked at the automatic, and then handed it across the table. "Now, let's see you put that firing pin back. "

Allan Hartley dismantled the weapon, inserted the missing part, and putit together again, then snapped it experimentally and returned it to hisfather. Blake Hartley looked at it again, and laid it on the table. 

"Now, son, suppose we have a little talk, " he said softly. 

"But I explained everything. " Allan objected innocently. 

"You did not, " his father retorted. "Yesterday you'd never have thoughtof a trick like this; why, you wouldn't even have known how to take thispistol apart. And at dinner, I caught you using language and expressingideas that were entirely outside anything you'd ever known before. Now, I want to know--and I mean this literally. "

Allan chuckled. "I hope you're not toying with the rather medievalnotion of obsession, " he said. 

Blake Hartley started. Something very like that must have been flittingthrough his mind. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed itabruptly. 

"The trouble is, I'm not sure you aren't right, " his son continued. "Yousay you find me--changed. When did you first notice a difference?"

"Last night, you were still my little boy. This morning--" Blake Hartleywas talking more to himself than to Allan. "I don't know. You wereunusually silent at breakfast. And come to think of it, there wassomething . .. Something strange . .. About you when I saw you in thehall, upstairs. .. . Allan!" he burst out, vehemently. "What has happenedto you?"

Allan Hartley felt a twinge of pain. What his father was going throughwas almost what he, himself, had endured, in the first few minutes afterwaking. 

"I wish I could be sure, myself, Dad, " he said. "You see, when I woke, this morning, I hadn't the least recollection of anything I'd doneyesterday. August 4, 1945, that is, " he specified. "I was positivelyconvinced that I was a man of forty-three, and my last memory was oflying on a stretcher, injured by a bomb explosion. And I was equallyconvinced that this had happened in 1975. "

"Huh?" His father straightened. "Did you say nineteen _seventy_-five?"He thought for a moment. "That's right; in 1975, you will beforty-three. A bomb, you say?"

Allan nodded. "During the siege of Buffalo, in the Third World War, " hesaid, "I was a captain in G5--Scientific Warfare, General Staff. There'dbeen a transpolar air invasion of Canada, and I'd been sent to the frontto check on service failures of a new lubricating oil for combatequipment. A week after I got there, Ottawa fell, and the retreatstarted. We made a stand at Buffalo, and that was where I copped it. Iremember being picked up, and getting a narcotic injection. The nextthing I knew, I was in bed, upstairs, and it was 1945 again, and I wasback in my own little thirteen-year-old body. "

"Oh, Allan, you just had a nightmare to end nightmares!" his fatherassured him, laughing a trifle too heartily. "That's all!"

"That was one of the first things I thought of. I had to reject it; itjust wouldn't fit the facts. Look; a normal dream is part of thedreamer's own physical brain, isn't it? Well, here is a part about twothousand per cent greater than the whole from which it was taken. Whichis absurd. "

"You mean all this Battle of Buffalo stuff? That's easy. All the radiocommentators have been harping on the horrors of World War III, and youcouldn't have avoided hearing some of it. You just have an undigestedchunk of H. V. Kaltenborn raising hell in your subconscious. "

"It wasn't just World War III; it was everything. My four years at highschool, and my four years at Penn State, and my seven years as areporter on the Philadelphia Record. And my novels: '_Children of theMist_, ' '_Rose of Death_, ' '_Conqueror's Road_. ' They were no kid stuff. Why, yesterday I'd never even have thought of some of the ideas I usedin my detective stories, that I published under a _nom-de-plume_. And myhobby, chemistry; I was pretty good at that. Patented a couple ofprocesses that made me as much money as my writing. You think athirteen-year-old just dreamed all that up? Or, here; you speak French, don't you?" He switched languages and spoke at some length in goodconversational slang-spiced Parisian. "Too bad you don't speak Spanish, too, " he added, reverting to English. "Except for a Mexican accent youcould cut with a machete, I'm even better there than in French. And Iknow some German, and a little Russian. "

 * * * * *

Blake Hartley was staring at his son, stunned. It was some time beforehe could make himself speak. 

"I could barely keep up with you, in French, " he admitted. "I can swearthat in the last thirteen years of your life, you had absolutely nochance to learn it. All right; you lived till 1975, you say. Then, allof a sudden, you found yourself back here, thirteen years old, in 1945. I suppose you remember everything in between?" he asked. "Did you everread James Branch Cabell? Remember Florian de Puysange, in 'The HighPlace'?"

"Yes. You find the same idea in 'Jurgen' too, " Allan said. "You know, I'm beginning to wonder if Cabell mightn't have known something hedidn't want to write. "

"But it's impossible!" Blake Hartley hit the table with his hand, sohard that the heavy pistol bounced. The loose round he had ejected fromthe chamber toppled over and started to roll, falling off the edge. Hestooped and picked it up. "How can you go back, against time? And thetime you claim you came from doesn't exist, now; it hasn't happenedyet. " He reached for the pistol magazine, to insert the cartridge, andas he did, he saw the books in front of his son. "Dunne's 'Experimentwith Time, '" he commented. "And J. N. M. Tyrrell's 'Science andPsychical Phenomena. ' Are you trying to work out a theory?"

"Yes. " It encouraged Allan to see that his father had unconsciouslyadopted an adult-to-adult manner. "I think I'm getting somewhere, too. You've read these books? Well, look, Dad; what's your attitude onprecognition? The ability of the human mind to exhibit real knowledge, apart from logical inference, of future events? You think Dunne istelling the truth about his experiences? Or that the cases in Tyrrell'sbook are properly verified, and can't be explained away on the basis ofchance?"

Blake Hartley frowned. "I don't know, " he confessed. "The evidence isthe sort that any court in the world would accept, if it concernedordinary, normal events. Especially the cases investigated by theSociety for Psychical Research: they _have_ been verified. But how cananybody know of something that hasn't happened yet? If it hasn'thappened yet, it doesn't exist, and you can't have real knowledge ofsomething that has no real existence. "

"Tyrrell discusses that dilemma, and doesn't dispose of it. I think Ican. If somebody has real knowledge of the future, then the future mustbe available to the present mind. And if any moment other than the barepresent exists, then all time must be totally present; every moment mustbe perpetually coexistent with every other moment, " Allan said. 

[Illustration]

"Yes. I think I see what you mean. That was Dunne's idea, wasn't it?"

"No. Dunne postulated an infinite series of time dimensions, the entireextent of each being the bare present moment of the next. What I'mpostulating is the perpetual coexistence of every moment of time in thisdimension, just as every graduation on a yardstick exists equally withevery other graduation, but each at a different point in space. "

"Well, as far as duration and sequence go, that's all right, " the fatheragreed. "But how about the 'Passage of Time'?"

"Well, time _does_ appear to pass. So does the landscape you see from amoving car window. I'll suggest that both are illusions of the samekind. We imagine time to be dynamic, because we've never viewed it froma fixed point, but if it is totally present, then it must be static, andin that case, we're moving through time. "

"That seems all right. But what's your car window?"

"If all time is totally present, then you must exist simultaneously atevery moment along your individual life span, " Allan said. "Yourphysical body, and your mind, and all the thoughts contained in yourmind, each at its appropriate moment in sequence. But what is it thatexists only at the bare moment we think of as _now_?"

 * * * * *

Blake Hartley grinned. Already, he was accepting his small son as anintellectual equal. 

"Please, teacher; what?"

"Your consciousness. And don't say, 'What's that?' Teacher doesn't know. But we're only conscious of one moment; the illusory now. This is 'now, 'and it was 'now' when you asked that question, and it'll be 'now' when Istop talking, but each is a different moment. We imagine that all thosenows are rushing past us. Really, they're standing still, and ourconsciousness is whizzing past them. "

His father thought that over for some time. Then he sat up. "Hey!" hecried, suddenly. "If some part of our ego is time-free and passes frommoment to moment, it must be extraphysical, because the physical bodyexists at every moment through which the consciousness passes. And ifit's extraphysical, there's no reason whatever for assuming that itpasses out of existence when it reaches the moment of the death of thebody. Why, there's logical evidence for survival, independent of anyalleged spirit communication! You can toss out Patience Worth, and Mrs. Osborne Leonard's Feda, and Sir Oliver Lodge's son, and Wilfred Brandon, and all the other spirit-communicators, and you still have evidence. "

"I hadn't thought of that, " Allan confessed. "I think you're right. Well, let's put that at the bottom of the agenda and get on with thistime business. You 'lose consciousness' as in sleep; where does yourconsciousness go? I think it simply detaches from the moment at whichyou go to sleep, and moves backward or forward along the line ofmoment-sequence, to some prior or subsequent moment, attaching there. "

"Well, why don't we know anything about that?" Blake Hartley asked. "Itnever seems to happen. We go to sleep tonight, and it's always tomorrowmorning when we wake; never day-before-yesterday, or last month, or nextyear. "

"It never . .. Or almost never . .. _seems_ to happen; you're right there. Know why? Because if the consciousness goes forward, it attaches at amoment when the physical brain contains memories of the previous, consciously unexperienced, moment. You wake, remembering the eveningbefore, because that's the memory contained in your mind at that moment, and back of it are memories of all the events in the interim. See?"

"Yes. But how about backward movement, like this experience of yours?"

"This experience of mine may not be unique, but I never heard of anothercase like it. What usually happens is that the memories carried back bythe consciousness are buried in the subconscious mind. You know howthick the wall between the subconscious and the conscious mind is. Thesedreams of Dunne's, and the cases in Tyrrell's book, are leakage. That'swhy precognitions are usually incomplete and distorted, and generallytrivial. The wonder isn't that good cases are so few; it's surprisingthat there are any at all. " Allan looked at the papers in front of him. "I haven't begun to theorize about how I managed to remember everything. It may have been the radiations from the bomb, or the effect of thenarcotic, or both together, or something at this end, or a combinationof all three. But the fact remains that my subconscious barrier didn'tfunction, and everything got through. So, you see, I am obsessed--by myown future identity. "

"And I'd been afraid that you'd been, well, taken-over by some . .. Someoutsider. " Blake Hartley grinned weakly. "I don't mind admitting, Allan, that what's happened has been a shock. But that other . .. I justcouldn't have taken that. "

 * * * * *

"No. Not and stayed sane. But really, I am your son; the same entity Iwas yesterday. I've just had what you might call an educational shortcut. "

"I'll say you have!" His father laughed in real amusement. He discoveredthat his cigar had gone out, and re-lit it. "Here; if you can rememberthe next thirty years, suppose you tell me when the War's going to end. This one, I mean. "

"The Japanese surrender will be announced at exactly 1901--7:01 P. M. Present style--on August 14. A week from Tuesday. Better make sure wehave plenty of grub in the house by then. Everything will be closed uptight till Thursday morning; even the restaurants. I remember, we hadnothing to eat in the house but some scraps. "

"Well! It is handy, having a prophet in the family! I'll see to it Mrs. Stauber gets plenty of groceries in. .. . Tuesday a week? That's prettysudden, isn't it?"

"The Japs are going to think so, " Allan replied. He went on to describewhat was going to happen. 

His father swore softly. "You know, I've heard talk about atomic energy, but I thought it was just Buck Rogers stuff. Was that the sort of bombthat got you?"

"That was a firecracker to the bomb that got me. That thing exploded agood ten miles away. "

Blake Hartley whistled softly. "And that's going to happen in thirtyyears! You know, son, if I were you, I wouldn't like to have to knowabout a thing like that. " He looked at Allan for a moment. "Please, ifyou know, don't ever tell me when I'm going to die. "

Allan smiled. "I can't. I had a letter from you just before I left forthe front. You were seventy-eight, then, and you were still hunting, andfishing, and flying your own plane. But I'm not going to get killed inany Battle of Buffalo, this time, and if I can prevent it, and I think Ican, there won't be any World War III. "

"But--You say all time exists, perpetually coexistent and totallypresent, " his father said. "Then it's right there in front of you, andyou're getting closer to it, every watch tick. "

Allan Hartley shook his head. "You know what I remembered, when FrankGutchall came to borrow a gun?" he asked. "Well, the other time, Ihadn't been home: I'd been swimming at the Canoe Club, with LarryMorton. When I got home, about half an hour from now, I found the housefull of cops. Gutchall talked the . 38 officers' model out of you, andgone home; he'd shot his wife four times through the body, finished heroff with another one back of the ear, and then used his sixth shot toblast his brains out. The cops traced the gun; they took a very poorview of your lending it to him. You never got it back. "

"Trust that gang to keep a good gun, " the lawyer said. 

"I didn't want us to lose it, this time, and I didn't want to see youlose face around City Hall. Gutchalls, of course, are expendable, " Allansaid. "But my main reason for fixing Frank Gutchall up with a paddedcell was that I wanted to know whether or not the future could bealtered. I have it on experimental authority that it can be. There mustbe additional dimensions of time; lines of alternate probabilities. Something like William Seabrook's witch-doctor friend's Fan-Shaped_Destiny_. When I brought memories of the future back to the present, Iadded certain factors to the causal chain. That set up an entirely newline of probabilities. On no notice at all, I stopped a murder and asuicide. With thirty years to work, I can stop a world war. I'll havethe means to do it, too. "

"The means?"

"Unlimited wealth and influence. Here. " Allan picked up a sheet andhanded it to his father. "Used properly, we can make two or threemillion on that, alone. A list of all the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, andBelmont winners to 1970. That'll furnish us primary capital. Then, remember, I was something of a chemist. I took it up, originally, to getbackground material for one of my detective stories; it fascinated me, and I made it a hobby, and then a source of income. I'm thirty yearsahead of any chemist in the world, now. You remember _I. G. Farbenindustrie_? Ten years from now, we'll make them look like pikers. "

His father looked at the yellow sheet. "Assault, at eight to one, " hesaid. "I can scrape up about five thousand for that--Yes; in tenyears--Any other little operations you have in mind?" he asked. 

"About 1950, we start building a political organization, here inPennsylvania. In 1960, I think we can elect you President. The worldsituation will be crucial, by that time, and we had a good-naturednonentity in the White House then, who let things go till war becameinevitable. I think President Hartley can be trusted to take a strongline of policy. In the meantime, you can read Machiavelli. "

"That's my little boy, talking!"

Blake Hartley said softly. "All right, son; I'll do just what you tellme, and when you grow up, I'll be president. .. . Let's go get supper, now. "

THE END.