"It would not be a difficult sale," she answered.
"But a bargain hard to keep pure," he snorted.
Laurie smiled. "It often happens," she said with a ring of sincerity,
"that duty and logic both direct one toward his heart's desire; that's
when life is best."
"And you?" Barry scowled.
"I find neither duty nor logic to be odious terms," she said; "and I'm
not one to abandon a pleasant idea just because it isn't original with
me."
Louis Ford suddenly jumped. "Hurry!" he shouted. "She's stalled us to
the danger point!"
"Trickstress," scorned Barry.
"They lie!" screamed Laurie. "Lester--believe me!"
Calvin Blaine turned to her. "Les will do as _he_ believes," he said.
"And all is not lost. We may yet win; remember--this, too, is but
probability!"
Louis Ford and Tod Laplane grabbed Les Ackerman by the arms and hurried
from the ship, into theirs. Les heard Laurie's fading voice crying
through sobs for him to stay.
* * * * *
The door of the other ship rapped shut and cut off the cries. "A
consummate actress," said Barry levelly.
Ackerman turned to him. "I presume that Tansie Lee is one of your
crowd? Frankly, I really don't know who to believe."
Barry laughed shortly. "Tansie Lee? She is none of my crowd; she's a
weak-minded sitter on the temporal fence, Ackerman. She believes that
both worlds can be saved."
"Well, can't they?"
"Oh, now look, Ackerman, you're not the same kind of wishy-washy
creature. Life is a struggle always. Kill or be killed still works--and
always will."
"Just destruction for the sake of," said Ackerman harshly, "is
untenable--even though you indulge in self-justification by believing
that life is always kill or be killed."
"Let's face it," said Barry Ford. "Before your perilous experiment,
we had a single world, with a single 'future'. You caused fission of
'time'. The twin existances are starting to converge again; the energy
used in splitting 'time' is dissipating and as it is converted, the
'time-streams' converge. But they have not been the same world for
hundreds of years. What will happen when suddenly the solar system
contains two suns, two earths, and two of each planet? The sky will be
filled with double stars where single stars once were, and quadruple
stars where doubles now exist. Some, that have not moved far from one
another in their contingent existances, will find one another occupying
the same 'space'! See?"
Ackerman scowled uncertainly. "It looks to me as though we're scheduled
for a big blast anyway."
Ford shook his head with a slight smile. "Nope," he said. "Not at all;
you see, Ackerman, there is only one thing that tends to draw the
coincident existances together. One force against the fissioning force
of your little experiment. If we can destroy that force, the twin lives
will continue to drift apart."
"And that force?"
"That force, Ackerman, is the physical energy of the human mind!"
"Uncontrolled? What is the affinity?"
Barry bit his lip and shrugged. "Human cussedness," he said. "Why,
fundamentally, are you a brilliant physicist?"
"I'm not; and I've been called that by too many people."
"You are and we'll pursue the question. Why?"
Ackerman grinned. "Just apelike curiosity," he said. "I like to know
what makes things tick."
"Research," said Barry, "revealed to our world that this 'time-split'
did obtain. It was announced. Instantly all people began to wonder what
the other one looked like, whether he had a 'time-brother' on the other
one, and every man, woman, and child found himself hoping, someday, to
join the other world. Doubtless those of the other earth did likewise."
Ackerman nodded absently. "You can destroy the earth but you can't
change human nature, is that it?"
"With precision."
* * * * *
Ackerman thought for a moment. Then he said: "I'm in the middle;
I've been told by three groups that within my mind lies the hope of
salvation. That may be so, but where it lies I'll be unable to tell
until someone tells me. Maybe I'll meet myself here in 'time-space'.
Then perhaps I can tell me." He laughed bitterly.
"However," he said roughly, "I'm still in the middle. I've been
led around both by the nose and by emotions and logic that may be
correct--or sheer sophistry. Someone should haul off and tell me the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but; too many people seem to be
keeping things to themselves. Like the gang who is afraid to vote for a
square deal because a square deal means that they'd get what was coming
to them and they know they wouldn't like what they deserved.
"Everyone seems more than willing to make use of me to further their
own ends. I'm still in the middle because I don't know the whole story.
"However again," he said with a sour smile, "there is one item upon
which all warring groups agree. And that, gentlemen, is that Lester
Ackerman's mind contains the answer to the problem. Until I know what
the answer is, I'm unable to help friend or foe, or in between. Nor,"
he added, "do I know which is which, yet.
"Therefore," he finished, "I'll go along with you because you happen to
have captured the pawn in free gambit; perhaps I'll learn the answer to
all of my questions at the same time."
Barry and Louis Ford and Tod Laplane listened quietly. Then Barry
nodded. "You've been pulled this way and that way, Ackerman, because
you were unable to move on your own; it is an admission of weakness to
refuse the other side its due. It is an admission of strength, belief
in one's own ideals, and faith in the rightness of himself if he is
not only willing for the other side to be heard, but urges it. Well,
Ackerman, we think we're right and we'll take you at your word; we have
every reason to believe that our side of this complicated story is the
soundest."
"Then how do I start?"
Barry smiled. "We all need a means of entering 'time-space' from a real
existance; you are the only one able to do it so far."
"But you're here."
"We are--but excellent probabilities; we are proof that you succeeded.
You might fail, Ackerman, and then our life would remain on our
individual worlds. Our life here will fade and all we've been able to
do will also disappear."
"And me?" asked Les, puzzling. "Am I a real identity, wandering through
an unreal realm of fancy?"
"This is an unreal world," said Barry thoughtfully. "Therefore you must
be unreal, too. However, if you fail, it will be as though you died in
that explosion. If you succeed, you will live again. With us!"
6
Barry Ford, unlike Les Ackerman's other companions, was set up for
work. Tansie had wanted to show him first and explain afterwards; what
her real purpose was, Les Ackerman could not divine. He suspected
her motives deeply; after all, Tansie was a married woman by her own
admission, a fact she had not mentioned until it had been forced from
her. Not only that, but she had behaved like a woman who was not only
interested in him but who also wanted his interest in her. Ackerman
squirmed uncomfortably as he recalled his complete, doglike faith. He'd
missed the ring; it was small and of natural gold that blended with
Tansie's golden skin. He suspected that she had been careful to keep
her left hand either out of sight or in motion, so that he could not
see it.
The Blaines at least, were more straightforward; there was less mystery
to them. Or, he admitted, their purpose had been uncovered by Barry
Ford and Company. At least there seemed to be no perfidy there. Laurie
was justified in trying to save her own earth. It was a rather involved
question; one that might never be solved. Ackerman might never be sure
whether Laurie's interest was real. Saving a world was a large item,
one that might drive a person into most any devious act. He had no
doubt that Laurie was a consummate actress, as Barry Ford claimed.
Calvin Blaine was equally justified. Ackerman smiled grimly. He saw
no reason to vote for one against the other; he did not subscribe to
their policy, which was to save their own at whatever expense to any
other, yet he was firm in his own willingness to admit that they were
justified in their own minds. Placed in a similar position, Ackerman
knew that he would lie, cheat, and steal to save his own earth from
destruction.
But things were clearer. Ackerman held no illusions now. He pegged
Barry Ford right. Ford, of course, was smart; he knew that by this time
there could be little chance for blind leading. His sensible course
was to admit the conflict and ask Ackerman to view both sides before
acting. Also, grinned Ackerman, Barry Ford was smart enough to realize
that after having two women hurled at him, Les would be inclined to
view any other such acts as sheer folly. The adage said: Once burned,
twice shy. After twice scorched, how skittish for the third time?
He had completed the circle of thought; he was back to Barry Ford.
The third party in this wild game was, unlike the others, set up for
laboratory investigation; Les admitted once that he did not know about
Tansie Lee and the Blaines. Maybe they were also set up. He hadn't been
around that long.
Les Ackerman was beginning to understand the basis for the famed
General Semantics. It was fine to know what was "truth", or feasible,
or "good". It was even better to know what was not "truth", or "good",
or feasible; that implied a greater recognition of knowledge. Thomas
Edison was reported to have known several thousand things about his
nickel storage battery that would not work.
The trouble with Ackerman, he himself realized, was that he knew
nothing at all. It was an insane program; he was here, aided and
working for men who were able to get here because Les had been
successful in his work. And then they blithely stated, coldly and
calmly, that so soon as he proved himself unable to succeed, they would
all disappear!
He shook his head, and then grinned. Fervently he prayed that this was
not a wild dream; it was such a fearful mess that any waking would be a
sorry anticlimax. He recalled Doctor Forbes, the eminent psychiatrist,
who once said that there was absolutely no way to prove to one's own
satisfaction that he was either dreaming or awake. He remembered that
especially because he'd had a dream shortly afterwards in which he
dreamed that he had just awakened from a dream. Doctor Forbes had
nodded when told, had mentioned that his subconscious had used that
method to try to prove to his dreaming mind that the dream was real.
He stopped thinking along those lines. That way madness lay. It was
reminiscent of the childlike reasoning that asks: "But Daddy, who
brings the baby storks?"
Or, he reconsidered irrelevantly, how many angels can stand on the
point of a pin.
* * * * *
There was another, more pertinent thing. On that point, Ackerman left
his room and went to Barry Ford. "Look, Barry," he said. "I want to
know how _you_ got here."
"You brought us through."
"And where is the equipment I used?"