"Meaning?" demanded Les.
"There's many's the slip. '_A would some power the giftie gi'e us, to
see ourselves as ithers see us_,'" quoted Tansie Lee's husband. "I
suppose you're not to blame; but you will agree that it is quite a
mess."
"Agreed. Now what do I do about it?"
"Ackerman, what started all this?"
"A strange explosion brought about by the temperon metal in the
cyclotron-set-up."
"And how is it to end?"
* * * * *
Ackerman sat down and put his face in his hands. "I don't know," he
said soberly. "It seems that I am to make a choice between worlds. I
can save one but not the other."
As Ackerman sat there, face lowered and spirits lower, he was in
complete misery and totally oblivious to everything about him. One
thing only penetrated the depth of his introversion.
That one thing was the cool touch of a soft hand on his shoulder. There
was a delicate scent--one that brought memories, both delicately fond
and angrily disconcerting. Tansie Lee seated herself beside him and put
an arm over his shoulder. "Don't do that to him," she said, speaking to
her husband with pleading.
"I can't live his life," he answered; "one more thing, and he'll be all
right."
Ackerman looked from one to the other, puzzled. Had he been the other
man, he would have been consumed with jealousy. "What?" he asked weakly.
"I can't tell you completely," said the other, "but it has to do with
the 'time-fission' and the temperon; you'll figure it out."
There came to Ackerman that he did have the answer. The way to solve
the problem was to use his ability to remove the temperon from the
cyclotron, and thus avert the explosion!
Tansie stood up. "Come on, Les," she said to him.
"Come on?" he asked dully.
"Yes," said her husband. "Finish what you started; you see, both Tansie
and I have a rather large stake in this thing."
He turned and headed across the ground to a second time-ship, entered,
and left.
Ackerman stood up and shook his head nervously. "Well, Mrs. Lee," he
said, and he mentally winced as he used her pet prefacing word.
She smiled, gaminlike, and said: "But I'm not Mrs. Lee. Tansie Lee is
my given name. You see, Les, I am Mrs. Lester Ackerman!"
"Ye--but--uh--"
She laughed gurglingly. "That's another thing that is completely wrong
with this 'time-space'," she said; "right now I'm married to you but
you aren't married to me. So if there's any question of convention,
Lester, you are the guilty party, not I."
Ackerman sat back down again and groaned.
"But you be a good, sensible boy," she promised coyly, "And someday you
will be."
"So that was---me?" he asked in a strained voice.
She nodded.
"You mean to tell me that I didn't recognize myself?" he demanded.
Again she nodded. "You see, Les, you--and everybody--is used to seeing
himself in a mirror. No face or person is symmetrical; that mole on
your right cheek is always on your mirror image's left cheek--but it
was still on the other Ackerman's right cheek. Also, you expected that
if that ship did contain yourself, coming to get you as you so happily
told the Ford-Laplane outfit, you expected that you would make some
wisecrack about it. Therefore you didn't expect yourself to be coming
as you did. Quite simple, I call it."
"Another angle on this mad tangle," said Les. "I'll be glad to get out
of it."
"So will I," said Tansie.
"And I'm going to start right now!"
9
Below them lay the depressed green-glaze bowl of atomic horror; above
stood the silent laboratory, deserted and awaiting the arrival of the
technicians for the next morning's work.
Hazily in sight was the temperon sample, and the radiation counters
were clicking off at a fast rate.
"What are you going to do?" asked Tansie, in a voice that was filled
with fear.
Ackerman stood up and stretched. "I am going to remove that sample,"
he said with an air of finality. "Then the time-fission will not take
place, and there need be no ultimate conflict between the twin worlds."
"You mustn't," she breathed.
"No?"
"No," she told him. "For if you do, you shall not live. And we will
never--" she let the sentence die.
He faced her squarely. "Tansie," he said, "It will be very easy for
me to fall deeply in love with you. Given another day, and it would
certainly obtain. Yet the lives and desires of two people must not
prevail to the death and destruction of a world full of people. Though
it mean death to me, I could not live knowing that billions of people
died because I was selfish."