Part 3 (1/2)

He looked for his hat, but did not find it, then stepped around back of the raised platform, seeking the exit he remembered. He nearly b.u.mped intoDiktor .

”Ah, there you are!” the older man greeted him.”Fine! Fine! Now there is just one more little thing to take care of, then we will be all squared away. I must say I am pleased with you, Bob, very pleased in-deed.”

”Oh, you are, are you?” Bob faced him truculently. ”Well, it's too bad I can't say the same about you! I'm not a d.a.m.n bit pleased. What was the idea of shoving me intothat.. .

that daisy chain without warning me? What's the meaning of all this nonsense? Why didn't you warn me?”

”Easy, easy,” said the older man, ”don't get excited. Tell the truth now -if I had told you that you were going back to meet yourself face to face, would you have believed me?

Come now, 'fess up.”

Wilsonadmitted that he would not have believed it.

”Well, then,”Diktor continued with a shrug, ”there was no pointin me telling you,was there? If I had told you, you would not have believed me, which is another way of saying that you would have believed false data. Is it not better to be in ignorance than to believe falsely?”

”I suppose so, but-”

”Wait! I did not intentionally deceive you. I did not deceive you at all. But had I told you the full truth, you would have been deceived because you would have rejected the truth. It was better for you to learn the truth with your own eyes. Otherwise-”

”Wait a minute! Wait a minute!”Wilson cut in. ”You're getting me all tangled up. I'm willingt'o let bygones be bygones, if you'll come clean with me. Why did you send me back at all?”

”'Let bygones be bygones,'”Diktor repeated.”Ah, if we only could! But we can't. That's why I sent you back-in order that you might come through the Gate in the first place.”

”Huh? Wait a minute-I alreadyhad come through the Gate.”

Diktorshook his head. ”Had you, now? Think a moment. When you got back into your own time and your own place you found your earlier self there, didn't you?”

”Mmmm-yes.”

~~He_yo~rearlier self-had not yet been through the Gate, had he?” No.1- ”How could you have been through the Gate, unless you persuaded him togo through the Gate?”

Bob Wilson's head was beginning to whirl. He was beginning to won-der who did what to whom and who got paid. ”But that's impossible! You are telling me that I did something because I was going to do something.”

”Well, didn't you? You were there.”

”No, I didn't-no. . . well, maybe I did, but it didn'tfeel like it.”

”Why should you expect it to? It was something totally new to your experience.”

'But.. .but-”Wilson took a deep breath and got control of himself.

Then he reached back into his academic philosophical concepts and produced the notion he had been struggling to express. ”It denies all reasonable theories of causation. You would have me believe that causa-tion can be completely circular. I went through because I came back from going through to persuade myself to go through. That's silly.”

”Well, didn't you?”

Wilsondid not have an answer ready for that one.Diktor continued with, ”Don't worry about it. The causation you have been accustomed to is valid enough in its own field but is simply a special case under the general case.Causation in a plenum need not be and is not limited by a man~iperception of duration.”

Wilsonthought about that for a moment. It sounded nice, but there was something slippery about it. ”Just a second,” he said.”How about entropy? You can't get around entropy.”

”Oh, for heaven's sake,” protestedDiktor , ”shut up, will you? You remindmeof the mathematician who proved that airplanes couldn't fly.” He turned and started out the door. ”Come on. There's work to be done.”

Wilsonhurried after him. ”Dammit, you can't do this to me. What happened to the other two?”

”The other two what?”

”The other two of me?Where are they? How am I ever going to get unsnarled?”

”You aren't snarled up. You don't feel like more than one person, do you?”

”No, but-”

”Then don't worry about it.”

”But I've got to worry about it. What happened to the guy that came through just ahead of me?”

”You remember, don't you? However-”Diktor hurried on ahead, led him down a pa.s.sageway, and dilated a door. ”Take a look inside,” he directed.

Wilsondid so. He found himself looking into a small windowless unfurnished room, a room that he recognized. Sprawled on the floor, snoring steadily, was another edition ofhimself .

”When you first came through the Gate,” explainedDiktor at his elbow, ”I brought you in here, attended to your hurts and gave you a drink. The drink contained a soporific which will cause you to sleep about thirty-six hours, sleep that you badly needed. When you wake up, I will giveyou breakfast and explain to you what needs to be done.”

Wilson's head started to ache again. ”Don't do that,” he pleaded. ”Don't refer to that guy as if he were me.Thisi1sme, standing here.”

”Have it your own way,” saidDiktor . ”That is the man youwere. You remember the things that are about to happen to him,don't you?”

”Yes, but it makes me dizzy. Close the door, please.”

”Okay,” saidDiktor , and complied. ”We've got to hurry, anyhow. Once a sequence like this is established there is no time to waste. Come on.” He led the way back to the Hall of the Gate.

”I want you to return to the twentieth century and obtain certain things for us, things that can't be obtained on this side but which will be very useful to us in, ah, developing-yes, that is the word- clevelopingthis country.”

”What sort of things?”

”Quite a number of items.I've prepared a list for you-certain refer-ence books, certain items of commerce. Excuse me, please. I must adjust the controls of the Gate.” He mounted the raised platform from the rear.Wilson followed himand'found that the structure was boxlike, open at the top and had a raised floor. The Gate could be seen by looking over the high sides.

The controls were unique.

Four colored spheres the size of marbles hung on crystal rods arranged with respect to each other as the four major axes of a tetrahedron. The three spheres which bounded the base of the tetrahedron were red, yellow and blue; the fourth at the apex was white. ”Three spatial controls, one time control,”

explainedDiktor . ”It's very simple. Using here-and-now as zero reference, displacing any control away from the center moves the other end of the Gate farther from here-and-now. Forward or back, right or left, up or down, past or future-they are all controlled by moving the proper sphere in or out on its rod.”

Wilsonstudied the system. ”Yes,” he said, ”but how do you tell where the other end of the Gate is?Or when? I don't see any graduations.”

”You don't need them. You can see where you are. Look.” He touched a point under the control framework on the side toward the Gate. A panel rolled back andWilson saw there was a small image of the Gate itself.Diktor made another adjustment andWilson found that he could see through the image.

He was gazing into his own room, as if through the wrong end of a telescope. He could make out two figures, but the scale was too small for himto see clearly what they were doing, nor could he tell which editions of himself were there present-if they were in truth himself! He found it quite upsetting. ”Shut it off,” he said.