Bob Shaw - Who Goes Here?

In spite of his chronic debility, Peace’s heart quickened as he realized that this was the exact location of his second birth a few crowded weeks earlier, and that the solution to the great mystery of his life was almost within reach.

A notice on the door yielded the information that the office would be open for business at 8.30 a.m. Peace no longer had a watch, but had passed a number of clocks in the district. He knew he was approximately an hour too early, and that waiting that length of time in the intense cold could easily be the last nail in his coffin. He glanced about him and almost sobbed with gratification as he espied an orange-lit bar directly across the street. Its steamy windows promised heat and sustenance, and furthermore would provide a vantage point from which he could monitor all arrivals at the recruiting office. Bitter experience had taught Peace that it was always when his fortunes appeared to be taking a turn for the better that disaster struck him yet another blow, but he was unable to repress a glow of simple pleasure at the prospect of a comfortable seat, heated air and pots of strong, scalding coffee. Clamping his arm against his damaged ribs, he shuffled across the street and went into the bar, which was almost empty at that hour of the day.

The bartender eyed him speculatively, but immediately became affable when he set a fifty monit note on the counter. A couple of minutes later, armed with a beaker of coffee stiffly laced with Bourbon, Peace made his way to the front of the narrow room and dropped into a chair at the window. He sipped his drink eagerly, holding the container in both hands, absorbing every calorie. So intent was he on the life-giving brew that half of it was gone before his eyes could focus on anything further away than the beaker’s rim. He found himself staring at another early-morning customer—a clean-shaven young man with a dull-pink face, wide mouth, blue eyes, and blond hair which was fashionably thinned above the forehead.

The young man, slumped in his seat, was the personification of a hangdog misery—exactly as Peace had last seen him, projected as an image on the wall of Captain Widget’s office.

A tidal wave of hot coffee washed around Peace’s nostrils as he realized he was looking at himself.

Not daring to think about the complexities which lay ahead, he got to his feet and limped to the other table. “Mind if I sit here, Norman?”

“I don’t mind.” His other self continued to stare into an empty glass.

Peace sat down.” Don’t you want to know how I know your name?”

“Couldn’t care less.” The young man raised his head and regarded Peace with mournful eyes which betrayed not the slightest trace of recognition. His gaze shifted to Peace’s grubby hands and disreputable clothing, and he took a crumpled ten-monit note from the pocket of his brown houndstooth jacket. “You should buy food with that—not booze.”

“I don’t want a handout.” Peace pushed the bill away, and decided to try shock tactics.

“Norman, what would you say if I told you that you and I are the same person?”

“I’d say you ought to lay off the vanilla extract for a while.”

The leaden indifference in his other selfs voice shocked Peace, but he pressed on. “It’s true, Norman—just look at me.”

Norman gave him a cursory glance. “You don’t even look like me.”

Peace opened his mouth to argue, and at the same instant caught a glimpse of himself in a wall mirror. He appeared ten years older than Norman, was much thinner, bearded, ragged, filthy, and had a swollen jaw which substantially altered the shape of his face. He also had a black eye, which he had not known about until that moment, and the harsh night of exposure had imparted to the rest of his skin the sort of blue-red hue normally acquired through a strict diet of cheap wine. Peace gulped and had to admit that Norman was right—they looked like two different people.

“All right,” he said, pouring sincerity into his voice. “I’ve been through a lot lately, but I tell you it’s true—you and I are the same person.”

A hint of amusement appeared briefly on Norman’s doom-laden countenance. “This is the weirdest come-on I’ve ever heard, and it’s being wasted—I’ve already given you the money.”

He pushed the note back across the table.

“I don’t want your money,” Peace said impatiently, wondering how he could ever have been so obtuse. “Are you going to listen to me, Norman?” Norman sighed and glanced at his watch.

“I suppose it will help to pass the last hour— conundrums instead of cognac. Why not? Let me see now, this must be like that old one about proving to somebody he isn’t here, except that I’ve to guess how you and I can be the same person. How about…?”

“You don’t have to guess anything—I’m going to tell you.” Peace sipped some coffee to hide his exasperation. “Supposing I tell you I’ve been in a time machine, and that…” He broke off as he saw that the fresher version of himself was dogmatically shaking his head.

“I wouldn’t believe you. Double-acting extroverters are illegal—especially here on Earth where there’s so much more history to be interfered with. Government detector vans go around all the time and root them out as soon as they’re switched on. I’ve heard they can even tell what year you’re tuned in to.”

“That’s the whole point,” Peace said triumphantly. He was on the verge of explaining that he was talking about an event which had occurred on Aspatria when a mind-quaking new thought stilled his voice. He had been so busy trying to bring this meeting about that there had been no time to plan what he was going to say, or in which to think about the possible consequences. Norman had been to Aspatria already, that much he knew, and if he now named the planet in evidence, convinced Norman he was speaking the truth, and went on to catalogue all the horrors and miseries of the last month—Norman could very well decide not to join the Legion.

And he, Warren Peace, was the individual who had come into existence as a direct result of Norman signing on for his thirty, forty or fifty years! Peace hurriedly swallowed some more coffee as he tried to sort out the paradoxes involved. If Norman changed his mind about entering the Legion, would Warren Peace cease to exist? Somehow the notion of being erased by a shift in probabilities was more terrible to Peace than that of facing a straightforward, old-fashioned death. A man who was dying normally had the consolation of knowing he would have some kind of memorial, even if it was only a heap of unpaid bills, but facing the possibility of never having existed at all was too much for anybody to…

“What’s the whole point?” Norman said. “Go on—you’ve got me interested.”

“That’s the point,” Peace replied lamely, his mind racing. “That I’ve got you interested. You weren’t interested at first, you see. And now you are.”

“So it was a come-on, after all.” The distracted look appeared in Norman’s eyes as he took out another bill and placed it beside the first. “That’s twenty you’ve got—do you mind if we call it quits now?”

Peace made to brush the money aside, then recalled that if he did so it was destined to end up in the hands of the predatory Captain Widget. He lifted the bills and crammed them into his pocket and tried to conceive a new approach to the main problem. Time was rushing by and he was no nearer to learning the guilty secret which was driving Norman, almost literally, to his wit’s end.

“Thank you,” he said. “It goes against the grain for an old legionary like me to accept a handout, but times are hard.”

“Legionary?” Norman looked at him with renewed curiosity. “But how did you get out?”