Robert Heinlein - Assignment in Eternity

Fairly put," conceded Frost. "I'll give a fair answer. Scientific belief is based on observation, either one's own or that of a competent observer. I believe in a two-dimensional time because I have actually observed it."

The clock ticked on for several seconds.

Jenkins said, "But that is impossible. Professor. You aren't built to observe two time dimensions."

"Easy, there ..." answered Frost. "I am built to perceive them one at a time and so are you. I'll tell you about it, but before I do so, I must explain the theory of time I was forced to evolve in order to account for my experience. Most people think of time as a track that they run on from birth to death as inexorably as a train follows its rails they feel instinctively that time follows a straight line, the past lying behind, the future lying in front. Now I have reason to believe to know that time is analogous to a surface rather than a line, and a rolling hilly surface at that. Think of this track we follow over the surface of time as a winding road cut through hills. Every little way the road branches and the branches follow side canyons. At these branches the crucial decisions of your life take place. You can turn right or left into entirely different futures. Occasionally there is a switchback where one can scramble up or down a bank and skip over a few thousand or million years if you don't have your eyes so fixed on the road that you miss the short cut.

"Once in a while another road crosses yours. Neither its past nor its future has any connection whatsoever with the world we know. If you happened to take that turn you might find yourself on another planet in another space-time with nothing left of you or your world but the continuity of your ego.

"Or, if you have the necessary intellectual strength and courage, you may leave the roads, or paths of high probability, and strike out over the hills of possible time, cutting through the roads as you come to them, following them for a little way, even following them backwards, with the past ahead of you, and the future behind you. Or you might roam around the hilltops doing nothing but the extremely improbable. I can not imagine what that would be like perhaps a bit like Alice-through-the-Looking-Glass.

"Now as to my evidence When I was eighteen I had a decision to make. My father suffered financial reverses and I decided to quit college. Eventually I went into business for myself, and, to make a long story short, in nineteen-fifty-eight I was convicted of fraud and went to prison."

Martha Ross interrupted. "Nineteen-fifty-eight, Doctor? You mean forty-eight?"

"No, Miss Ross. I am speaking of events that did not take place on this time track."

"Ohi" She looked blank, then muttered, "With the Lord all things are possible."

"While in prison I had time to regret my mistakes. I realized that I had never been cut out for a business career, and I earnestly wished that I had stayed in school many years before. Prison has a peculiar effect on a man's mind. I drifted further and further away from reality, and lived more and more in an introspective world of my own. One night, in a way not then clear to me, my ego left my cell, went back along the time track, and I awoke in my room at my college fraternity house.

"This time I was wiser Instead of leaving school, I found part-time work, graduated, continued as a graduate fellow, and eventually arrived where you now see me." He paused and glanced around.

"Doctor," asked young Monroe, "can you give us any idea as to how the stunt was done?"

'Yes, I can," Frost assented. "I worked on that problem for many years, trying to recapture the conditions. Recently I have succeeded and have made several excursions into possibility."

Up to this time the third woman, Estelle Martin, had made no comment, although she had listened with close attention. Now she leaned forward and spoke in an intense whisper.

"Tell us how, Professor FrostI"

"The means is simple. The key lies in convincing the subconscious mind that it can be done "

"Then the Berkeleian idealism is proved!"

"In a way. Miss Martin. To one who believes in Bishop Berkeley's philosophy the infinite possibilities of two-dimensional time offer proof that the mind creates its own world, but a Spencerian determinist, such as good friend Howard Jenkins, would never leave the road of maximum probability. To him the world would be mechanistic and real. An orthodox free-will Christian, such as Miss Ross, would have her choice of several of the side roads, but would probably remain in a physical environment similar to Howard's.

"I have perfected a technique which will enable others to travel about in the pattern of times as I have done. I have the apparatus ready and any who wish can try it. That is the real reason why these Friday evening meetings have been held in my home so that when the time came you all might try it, if you wished." He got up and went to a cabinet at the end of die room. "You mean we could go tonight. Doctor?" "Yes, indeed. The process is one of hypnotism and suggestion. Neither is necessary, but that is the quickest way of teaching the sub-conscious to break out of its groove and go where it pleases. I use a revolving ball to tire the conscious mind into hypnosis. During that period the subject listens to a recording which suggests the time-road to be followed, whereupon he does. It is as simple as that. Do any of you care to try it?"

"Is it likely to be dangerous. Doctor?" He shrugged his shoulders. "The process isn't just a deep sleep and a phonograph recordBut the world of the time track you visit will be as real as the world of this time track. You are all over twenty-one. I am not urging you, I am merely offering you the opportunity."

Monroe stood up. "I'm going, Doctor." "Good! Sit here and use these earphones. Anyone else?"

"Count me in." It was Helen Fisher.

Estelle Martin joined them. Howard Jenkins went hastily to her side. "Are you going to try this business?"

"Most certainly."

He turned to Frost. "I'm in. Doc."

Martha Ross finally joined the others. Frost seated them where they could wear the ear-phones and then asked,

"You will remember the different types of things you could do; branch off into a different world, skip over into the past or the future, or cut straight through the maze of probable tracks on a path of extreme improbability. I have records for all of those."

Monroe was first again. "I'll take a right angle turn and a brand new world."

Estelle did not hesitate. "I want to How did you put it? climb up a bank to a higher road somewhere in the future."

"I'll try that, too." It was Jenkins.

"Ill take the remote-possibilities track," put in Helen Fisher.

"That takes care of everybody but Miss Ross," commented the professor. "I'm afraid you will have to take a branch path in probability. Does that suit you?"

She nodded. "I was going to ask for it."

"That's fine. All of these records contain the suggestion for you to return to this room two hours from now, figured along this time track. Put on your earphones. The records run thirty minutes. I'll start them and the ball together."

He swung a glittering many-faceted sphere from a hook in the ceiling, started it whirling, and turned a small spotlight on it. Then he turned off the other lights, and started all the records by throwing a master switch. The scintillating ball twirled round and round, slowed and reversed and twirled back again. Doctor Frost turned Jlis eyes away to keep from being fascinated by it. Presently he slipped out into the hall for a smoke. Half an hour passed and there came the single note of a gong. He hurried back and switched on the light.

Four of the five had disappeared.

The remaining figure was Howard Jenkins, who opened his eyes and blinked at the light. "Well, Doctor, I guess it didn't work."