CHAPTER III

The Whacky Worlds of Maybe

I was the first to break the horrified silence, and I hereby claim the all-time, All-American and world's record for silence-shattering--because _two_ of me broke it at once!

I wailed, "_Omigawd!_" Then started like a bishop in a burleyque as I heard my own voice wailing, "_Omigawd!_"--and saw myself whirl and make a bee-line for the door.

Then Horsesense Hank--_my_ Horsesense Hank, I should say--put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Easy, Jim!" And the _other_ Horsesense Hank put his hand on the _other_ me's arm, and said, "Easy, Jim!", and two Helens asked, simultaneously, "Hank--what in the world has happened to us?"

Hank's brows were furrowed. He said slowly, "Well, it's this way, honey--" Then he stopped as he realized that his identical twin was saying the identical words in the same quiet voice. The two Hanks stared at each other for a second, then the other Hank nodded. "Go ahead," he said. "Mebbe you c'n explain it better'n me."

The Hank sitting beside me acknowledged the nod with its exact duplicate.

"Awright," he said. "Well, near's I c'n figger out, it's this way:

"Helen done went an' turned on the key while we was sittin' in the machine. Which set it into operation. Like I told you, this machine travels in time. An' that's jest whut it done!"

"But--but you said it wasn't working yet, Hank!" I moaned.

"No, Jim. I said it wasn't _completed_ yet. There's a difference."

It still didn't make sense. I gestured towards the three "usses" standing beside us.

"But a time-machine ought to go into the future or the past. These people--"

Hank shook his head. "Jim, I showed you them dials on the dashboard. They control the future-past Time element. And--and they're the gadgets which wasn't completed yet!"

I pawed my hair feverishly.

"But if they weren't connected ... if we're neither in the future nor in the past ... where are we? And who in the world are _they_?"

"We're in the present," said Hank, "but we're in a _different_ present. We didn't travel forward or backward. We slipped sideways across the Time dimension to another present based on an entirely different set of possibilities.

"Leastwise--" He glanced inquiringly at the other Hank. "--that's whut it 'pears like to me. Hank--er--Mr. Cleaver, how 'bout that? Whut happened in _your_ past? Didn't she turn the key?"

"Are you crazy?" bleated my double. "Of course she didn't turn the key! She just this moment entered the room."

"Our" Helen seemed suddenly to understand. Some of the stupefaction left her eyes, a knowing look took its place and she nodded to "their" Helen.

"Delayed, dear? What was it? Your--?"

* * * * *

The other Helen blushed and nodded. "Yes. Just as I was leaving the house it snapped. I had to run back in and tack it up."

"I thought of doing that," said our Helen. "Then I decided to just pin it together and come along. Why, this is ridiculous! Surely a little thing like a broken--"

"But it did!" interrupted Hank hastily. "It's like I told you, Jim--any little thing will change the hist'ry of existence. You see whut happened now? Back there an hour or so ago, Helen broke her--something happened to Helen--Which give her a choice of decisions.

"That was a deciding p'int in the hist'ry of _all_ of us. Way it happened to you folks, she went back an' sewed it up; that made her a few minutes late, an' she never got time to climb into the machine.

"Way it happened to _us_, Helen just jury-rigged her skivvies--'scuse me, honey-lamb!--an' come along. Got into the machine, turned the key an'--here we are!"

"Yes, here we are!" I squawked, "but where the hell _are_ we? Logic or no logic, Hank, this is one time I will not believe my own eyes! These other 'usses' don't exist. _Can't_ exist. Why, it violates the Law of Conservation of Matter! The same thing can't exist two places at the same time--"

"Sure it can't," agreed Hank impatiently. "But I'm tryin' to tell you, this ain't the same Time! This here is a diff'rent world entirely. This is one world from an infinite number o' possibilities arisin' out o' the past. That other Jim Blakeson _looks_ like you, Jim. An'--" Hank studied him speculatively. My double had jerked a bottle of rye from the bedroom medicine cabinet, and was feverishly engaged in warding off pneumonia for the next ten years. "--an' I must admit he _acts_ like you, too--but he ain't you. He's you like you woulda been under a different set of coordinates."

This time I had him! Had him cold! Triumphantly I cried, "Then if he's not me, this whole thing is a delirious dream. Otherwise we couldn't meet. Because _one_ of us has no real existence. Even granting that at any given point in the past an infinitude of things could have happened, the fact remains that only one thing _did_ happen! So one of us is alive, and the other has no real existence!"

But Hank shook his head slowly and sadly.

"Nope, Jim! I'm sorry, but you're wrong again. It don't work out that way. From the beginning o' Time I reckon they musta been billions o' different crooshul situations--an' each one o' them has made way to another possible future, each one as true an' valid as the rest.

"The big trouble is--" And here he looked worried for the first time, stared at his silent prototype. "But _you_ built the machine, too. You know whut the trouble is."

And the other Hank nodded his head soberly.

"Mmm-hmm. Been wonderin' about it ever since you arrove. Whut you goin' to do about it?"

"I dunno exactly," confessed Cleaver No. 1. "I--I mean _we_--had planned on installin' a magnetic grapple in the machine so's we c'd alluz get back where we come from--but now, ding-bust it, I'm in the machine an' can't git out, an' the equipment ain't installed--"

That was too much! It was bad enough arguing with Hank Cleaver, but to sit there listening to two Hank Cleavers talking and arguing with one another--that was a little too much for me! I sent out an SOS to my alter ego.

"Look, Buster, or Blakeson, or Narcissus,[2] how about a Share-the-Health plan with that bottle? After all, I'm the guy who bought it."

[Footnote 2: Narcissus, according to legend, was a youth so infatuated with his own appearance that he spent all his time admiring his own reflection in a pool of water.]

He said, "The hell you did! But here--" And held out the bottle. I reached for it--

* * * * *

His hand passed completely through the walls of the machine in which I sat! My hand passed completely in and out of the bottle he handed me; the bottle fell right through my fingers, my arm, and my right foot--and crashed on the floor below! Both of me wailed, good dusty rye gurgled cheerfully into the carpet, and I stared at Hank Cleaver dismally.

"Now what?" I demanded. "Now who did what when?"

And Hank, a haunted look in his eyes, said, "Sorry, Jim--but that's another o' the drawbacks to this time-travel business. You c'n see things an' hear 'em and smell 'em, but you can't _tetch_ 'em. Because as fur's you're concerned, they _ain't_, an' as fur's they're concerned, you don't exist!"

Helen MacDowell stared at him.

"You mean we can't step out of this jaloppy when we take it into our minds to do so?"

"Nope!" said Hank miserably. "We're locked in like caged mice."

The thought was right, but he expressed it much too masculinely. At his words, both Helens emitted little squeals of fright. And "our" Helen swung into action.

"Then I," she cried, "am getting out of here! Right away! I'm going back where I belong--"

"_Helen!_" howled Hank, agonized. "Hank--try to--!"

But both roar and plea were bootless. For again my brainy chum's fiancée had clicked the key, the room had faded and all sights and sounds were lost in that gray, flickering veil. Once more we were on our way!

* * * * *

Once when I was a kid in knee-britches I hitched my express-wagon on behind what I thought was a leisurely, local truck. A few minutes later I was startled to find I was tied to a private ambulance on emergency call! Worse yet, I could not unscramble my amateurish knot. I have never forgotten my wild, heart-pounding ride through the crowded city streets ... lashing back and forth giddily like a bob in a boiling cauldron ... glimpsing through terrified eyes the unfamiliar streets through which we whirled at lightning speed ... viewing a weird kaleidoscope of running feet, dodging autos, skyscrapers that seemed to topple precariously toward me as I rocked and swayed and trembled....

What happened now made that childhood memory appear as gentle and undisturbing as Tit-tat-toe Night at the Old Ladies' Home. It was the same thing, only more so! Again I experienced that sensation of wild, headlong, uncontrollable flight--but this time not only was the destination unfathomable, but also were the sights I saw and the sounds I heard so weirdly incredible as to half madden the brain!

And that was because Horsesense Hank would not let bad enough alone. He kept reaching over and fingering studs, keys, and gadgets on the dashboard. He pushed one doojigger, and the sensation of rising joined in with the other stomach-churning feelings we were undergoing; he pushed another, and I felt a swift surge forward; to complete my feeling of utter rout, he kept turning off and on the motivating key. It was whenever he did so, whenever the gray flickering disappeared, that we--we saw things!

And what things we saw!

[Illustration: Here was a world of science, where rocket ships made trips to other planets in space....]

Our first "stop," I plainly recall, was on the main street of a great city. We were right smack-dab in the middle of the street, which didn't seem to affect us one way or the other, but it sure raised hob with the people amongst whom we suddenly and, I suppose miraculously, appeared.

One of them walked right through us, then, discovering what he had done, loosed a howl of terror and went racing down the street, trailed by a streamer of polysyllables which had, so far as I was concerned, absolutely no meaning.

It was a scandal to the jaybirds that he should be out walking anyway, because all he had on was a pair of soft sandals and a loose, flowing gown that looked like somebody's bleached bathrobe.

The streets were narrow and cobbled, the buildings tall and graceful, colonnaded with pillars, each of which was carven into the form of some heroic male or bulgy shemale. A fountain tinkled on a grassy lawn some few yards from us, and a bevy of olive-skinned babes were doing the family wash in the basin beneath it. When they clapped peepers on us, they joined voices in one chorus of fright, picked up their skirts and dusted.

Hank snapped the key.

* * * * *

His next random stop was no better. If anything it was worse. We found ourselves on a dusty road, surrounded by trees and fields in which labored scores upon endless scores of--American Indians! They bent diligently to the labor of harvesting, while over them stood a grim-visaged soldier clad in glistening buckler, greaves and helm. As we sat watching, a mounted band of similarly clad warriors swung up the road. They saw us. Instantly their leader bellowed a command--and dust flew as they charged down upon us.

I'll never forget the look on the leader's face as, with lances levelled, banner flying, swords drawn, they came banging hell-for-leather right up to, into and through us!

Hank snapped the key again.

The next sights came and went so fast that I never fully saw nor comprehended any of them. In turn and variously we found ourselves in: a quiet village inhabited by plump little farmers who spoke German; a towering city lighted only by flickering gas-lamps; a dirty little slum-section wherein evil roisterers roared bawdy songs in a French _patois_; a big temple, gilded and magnificent, surrounded by chanting rows of priests; the middle of a brick-and-plaster wall; a huge airfield upon which were reared fully a dozen monstrous egg-shaped crafts, one of which, as we stared bewildered, hurled itself heavenward in a tremendous burst of flame to be lost, a flaming dot, in the ebon reaches of the sky.

Then a thriving little town, where for the first time we saw printed words we could understand. "POST OFFICE ... Hunter's Fort ... Virginia ... C.S.A."

All these and dozens more, until my brain staggered before the questions it could not answer. And Hank continued to punch keys with--I could not help thinking--a desperate intentness.

But it was Helen who broke first. She was atremble with emotion as she reached forward and stayed Hank's fingers on the studs, stayed our mad voyage in what was, by now, the almost pleasant grayness of the void. And, "Hank!" she cried. "No more, Hank! Oh, please, no more! I can't stand it. Not without knowing where we are, what these places are, what it all means...."

Hank took his hands from the controls reluctantly. For a long moment he studied us. Then,

"I should think you'd understand by now," he said. "I been tryin' to 'splain it to you all along. What we been seein' is just a fraction o' them other possible worlds I was talkin' about. These are the worlds that _might_ o' been!"