"Yes. The world, though perhaps unaware, is crying for it. I shall
detail my life, my work. I shall reveal myself as the man responsible
for the three years' duration of the Pacific War of 2004."
"You?"
"None other. Had I not been a loyal Netherlands subject at that time,
and therefore neutral, the forces of Asia would have been crushed in
three months instead of three years. The subjunctivisor tells me so; I
would have invented a calculator to forecast the chances of every
engagement; van Manderpootz would have removed the hit or miss element
in the conduct of war." He frowned solemnly. "There is my idea. The
autobiography of van Manderpootz. What do you think of it?"
I recovered my thoughts. "It's--uh--it's colossal!" I said vehemently.
"I'll buy a copy myself. Several copies. I'll send 'em to my friends."
"I," said van Manderpootz expansively, "shall autograph your copy for
you. It will be priceless. I shall write in some fitting phrase, perhaps
something like _Magnificus sed non superbus_. 'Great but not proud!'
That well described van Manderpootz, who despite his greatness is
simple, modest, and unassuming. Don't you agree?"
"Perfectly! A very apt description of you. But--couldn't I see your
subjunctivisor before it's dismantled to make way for the greater work?"
"Ah! You wish to find out something?"
"Yes, professor. Do you remember the _Baikal_ disaster of a week or two
ago? I was to have taken that liner to Moscow. I just missed it." I
related the circumstances.
"Humph!" he grunted. "You wish to discover what would have happened had
you caught it, eh? Well, I see several possibilities. Among the world of
'if' is the one that would have been real if you had been on time, the
one that depended on the vessel waiting for your actual arrival, and the
one that hung on your arriving within the five minutes they actually
waited. In which are you interested?"
"Oh--the last one." That seemed the likeliest. After all, it was too
much to expect that Dixon Wells could ever be on time, and as to the
second possibility--well, they _hadn't_ waited for me, and that in a way
removed the weight of responsibility.
"Come on," rumbled van Manderpootz. I followed him across to the Physics
Building and into his littered laboratory. The device still stood on the
table and I took my place before it, staring at the screen of the
Horsten psychomat. The clouds wavered and shifted as I sought to impress
my memories on their suggestive shapes, to read into them some picture
of that vanished morning.
Then I had it. I made out the vista from the Staten Bridge, and was
speeding across the giant span toward the airport. I waved a signal to
van Manderpootz, the thing clicked, and the subjunctivisor was on.
The grassless clay of the field appeared. It is a curious thing about
the psychomat that you see only through the eyes of your image on the
screen. It lends a strange reality to the working of the toy; I suppose
a sort of self-hypnosis is partly responsible.
I was rushing over the ground toward the glittering, silver-winged
projectile that was the _Baikal_. A glowering officer waved me on, and I
dashed up the slant of the gangplank and into the ship; the port dropped
and I heard a long "Whew!" of relief.
"Sit down!" barked the officer, gesturing toward an unoccupied seat. I
fell into it; the ship quivered under the thrust of the catapult, grated
harshly into motion, and then was flung bodily into the air. The blasts
roared instantly, then settled to a more muffled throbbing, and I
watched Staten Island drop down and slide back beneath me. The giant
rocket was under way.
"Whew!" I breathed again. "Made it!" I caught an amused glance from my
right. I was in an aisle seat; there was no one to my left, so I turned
to the eyes that had flashed, glanced, and froze staring.
It was a girl. Perhaps she wasn't actually as lovely as she looked to
me; after all, I was seeing her through the half-visionary screen of a
psychomat. I've told myself since that she _couldn't_ have been as
pretty as she seemed, that it was due to my own imagination filling in
the details. I don't know; I remember only that I stared at curiously
lovely silver-blue eyes and velvety brown hair, and a small amused
mouth, and an impudent nose. I kept staring until she flushed.
"I'm sorry," I said quickly. "I--was startled."
There's a friendly atmosphere aboard a trans-oceanic rocket. The
passengers are forced into a crowded intimacy for anywhere from seven to
twelve hours, and there isn't much room for moving about. Generally, one
strikes up an acquaintance with his neighbors; introductions aren't at
all necessary, and the custom is simply to speak to anybody you
choose--something like an all-day trip on the railroad trains of the
last century, I suppose. You make friends for the duration of the
journey, and then, nine times out of ten, you never hear of your
traveling companions again.
The girl smiled. "Are you the individual responsible for the delay in
starting?"
I admitted it. "I seem to be chronically late. Even watches lose time as
soon as I wear them."