Murray Leinster

The Ethical Equations 26

Symbiosis 44

Interference 61

De Profundis 73

Pipeline to Pluto 87

Sam, this is you 100

The devil of East Lupton 120

Scrimshaw 136

If you was a Moklin 152

Crime. Leinster mas a very moral writer. Almost without exception virtue received its just - if delayed - reward, and the nasties received their come-uppance. Occasionally the innocent suffered
(especially in the earlier pre-war universal-catastrophe novels), but generally speaking when someone died you know he deserved it. Sometimes, however, even the villain got a second chance; what he did with it - well, that’s something else again.

Rodney
sat on the cot in his cell and stared at a white-hot splash of sunlight shining straight down on the stone floor between the death cells. He was literally dazed. But gradually the news his lawyers had sent him fought itself to the status of a fact. There would be no second reprieve. There would be no commutation. In spite of his standing as having one of the four best brains in the country, in spite of his reputation as possibly the most competent physicist alive, he was going to be executed like a common felon for a commonplace murder. His lawyers could do no more. In exactly three days, prison guards would come and shave his head and slit his trouser legs, and then march him down the corridor to the little green door at its end, and they would take him through it into a room in which there was a squat and ugly and quite horrible chair. They would strap him in that chair and put wetted electrodes to his flesh, and a white-faced man would throw a switch, and Rodney’s body, already dead, would struggle convulsively against its doom—

He cracked, suddenly. His flesh crawled as if every separate cell of his body raised a frightened clamor against its coming dissolution. His bones turned to water. His throat was suddenly dusty-dry. He found his hands clawing aimlessly. He heard himself making noises. They were partly gasps and partly sobs and pardy self-stifled screams of terror.

He heard the sounds, and he felt contempt for himself. But he could not stop. His body made shaking, convulsive movements. Great tears poured from his wide-opened eyes, empty of everything but pure animal panic. The noises grew louder. Presently he would be screaming. And, if the doctor did not come in time; if somehow he could conceal his state until no dosage of drugs could ease it, he would be quite mad and then they would not execute him. He would live—

Then there was a noise somewhere close by. It was merely the creaking of springs on the cot in the other death cell, now inhabited by one Limpy Gossett. But Limpy was listening. He was a murderer, too. He had been condemned a second time for his second murder. He was to follow Rodney through the door at the end of the corridor. They had talked often, in the past few weeks, and Rodney felt an illimitable contempt for his fellow criminal. But pride forbade that he let Limpy hear him.

Limpy’s voice came, reverberating endlessly against the stone walls and iron bars and iron rafters and roof of the deathhouse.
^f
It got you, guy?’

Rodney would have welcomed madness, because it would have kept his body alive. But Limpy was a mere professional criminal. His two murders had been incidental to his profession of burglary. His brain hardly rated above a moron’s classification. So Rodney clamped his lips shut and fought desperately for composure. After seconds he said, as if drowsily:

‘What’s that? Limpy, did you say something?’

‘Yeah,’ said the reverberating voice. Limpy was invisible. Rodney had never seen him. But his voice was deep bass, and the echoes in the deathhouse gave it an awesome quality which no amount of bad grammar could quite take away.
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asked did it get you. I heard you makin’ noises.’

Rodney stirred on his cot. He feigned a yawn.

‘I had a nightmare,’ he said. ‘A cyclotron sprouted arms and legs and went racing through the lab—’

His own voice echoed, but it would not have the quality of Limpy’s. He waited, his hands clenched.

‘Too bad,’ rumbled the unseen Limpy. ‘You only got three days, guy. Three days an’ they march you through the litde green door. I got somethin’ to tell you when you crack up. It’ll help. Let go, fella. What you hangin’ on for?’

‘Why should I crack up?’ demanded Rodney.

Because,’ said the booming voice,
you got a chance then. I get one too - maybe. There’s a trick y’can work. I can’t, but I seen it work once. If I seen it again, maybe I’d get the trick of it.’

Rodney, wetting his lips, said skeptically:

‘Escape, eh?’

‘Yeah,’ said the invisible voice. ‘From the deathhouse. I seen a fella named Fellenden do it. Ever hear of him?’

‘Not likely,’ said Rodney. He despised Limpy and all he stood for. He, Rodney, was another order of human being entirely. He— But then he said sharply: ‘Fellenden? You mean the chap who worked out the indeterminacy field for electron telescopes?’

Silence, as if the unseen Limpy had shrugged. But his bass voice, echoing, said:

‘I wouldn’t know. He bumped his wife. He was gonna get the hot seat. We was in the deathhouse at Joliet together. He got away. Skipped. Blew. They never knew how he done it.
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couldn’t. But I got a commutation later on, an’ after, I got out. Remember him?’

Rodney said suddenly:

‘That’s right! Fellenden did kill his wife! He left a lot of work undone, and some of it nobody could quite carry on—’ ‘O.K.,’ said the rumbling voice. ‘That’s the guy, I guess. We used to talk, same as you an’ me. He was workin’ on a idea to get away. He told me. “Helped to talk things out,” he said. It was a trick to get away clean. When you crack up, maybe you can do it, an’ maybe you can explain it to me first Let go, fella!’

The patch of sunlight shone white-hot. For an hour every day it shone into the deathhouse. Its reflection was a soft bright glow which should have been beautiful - but there can be no beauty in twin rows of death cells.

Rodney swallowed. His throat was still dry.

Why wait?’ he asked, with an effect of cynicism. ‘If it needs desperation, I’m all set now! What’ve I got to lose beyond a couple of days of waiting?’

His voice sounded all right, but he was shaking all over. He stared through tool-steel bars across the corridor with its spot of sunshine, and into the depths of another cell just like his own, but untenanted.

‘Fellenden said,’ said Limpy, ‘that a fella hangin’ on couldn’t work it. A guy’s got to use all his brains. If he’s defiant, an’ dingin’ to excuses for what he done, an’ insistin’ he hadda right to or hangin’ on to hope, that’s part of his brain that won’t work free. A fella’s got to be cracked up or else plenty sorry so he don’t care what part of his brain gets stirred up.’

Rodney said skeptically:

‘Ah! No suppressions. No memory blocks. If that means no inhibitions, I qualify! But what’s this, Limpy? Self-hypnosis?’ Limpy’s voice rolled, and yet was casual.

‘He called it time-travelin’.’

Rodney stiffened. But that was nonsense! Fellenden hadn’t accomplished time travel! He’d devised a field of quite ridiculous simplicity which eliminated the indeterminacy factor that had made electron telescopes impossible. There would be no electron telescopes but for Fellenden. It was true that there was still controversy over how his field worked. Nobody knew what his theory had been. It was known only that the field worked. But time travel—

‘That’s crazy,’ jeered Rodney.
How’d he do it? But it’s impossible!’

Again there was a pause as if Limpy shrugged.

‘He said we do it all the time. We used to be in yesterday. After a while we’ll be in tomorrow. Like bein’ on a train that a while back was in a jerkwater town named Tuesday, an’ll reach a town named Wednesday presently. That’s time travel!’ Rodney laughed shortly, but with a catch in his breath.

‘Tell me about his escape,’ he commanded.

Limpy’s voice rolled in every crack and cranny of the deathhouse. After every word there was a whispering echo that lingered with a queerly solemn persistency.

‘The night he left,’ the voice said quietly, ‘he grinned at the guard when he was makin’ last inspection. “I’m escapin’ tonight Clancy,” he says. An’ the guard says, “Says you!” An’ Fellenden says, “That’s right. Better tell the warden, or you’ll catch hell when I turn up missin’.” Clancy did. That guy Fellenden was smart. They knew it. They come an’ turned his cell inside out. They stripped him an’ hunted over that place like nobody’s business. They didn’t find anything. Natural! An’ Fellenden says, “I’m glad you did this, Warden. You’ll feel better for havin’ done it.” The warden says, sour, “I’ll see you in the mornin’!” But Fellenden says, “Oh, no. I’ll be gone. I’d explain if I could but you wouldn’t believe it. Anyhow, you’ve been warned, an’ you’ll take all the precautions anybody could, so nobody can blame you. I like that,” says Fellenden. It was funny to hear him talk so quiet an’ confident!’

Rodney listened tensely. This was insane, but his body still felt sick and weak with purely physical revulsion against extinction.

‘Go on!’ said Rodney challengingly.

‘The warden says, ironic, “You takin’ Limpy?” an’ Fellenden says, “I would if I could, Warden. I’d help everybody escape if I could - an’ so would you, if you could help ’em escape my way. But everybody has to do it for himself.” The warden grunted. He didn’t feel easy. Fellenden didn’t sound crazy. He wasn’t.

Silence, while echoes lingered. Rodney licked his lips.

‘In the middle of the night,’ Limpy went on, ‘the guard come an’ looked in Fellenden’s cell. I was awake. I hadda reason. I heard Fellenden say, “Good-bye, Clancy. I won’t be here when you come back.” Clancy says, “I think you will.” Him an’ Fellenden laughed together. Me, I sweated. I knew what Fellenden was gonna try. After Clancy went out, he says, “I’m startin’ Limpy. You try an’ make it too. Don’t talk to me now.” Then it got still. It was so still that I could hear Fellenden breathin’.

He breathed quiet an’ steady, quiet an’ steady— An
then I didn’t hear him breathin’ any more. Guy, sweat come out on me in gallons! Next time the guard come through he looked in Fellenden’s cell. He jumped a foot. He threw his light in there. Then he yelled. Fellenden was gone. Gone complete. They never found hide nor hair of him. They never even found out how he done it. He was just plain gone!’

There were little dust motes dancing in the shaft of sunlight that came down from overhead. It had moved perceptibly. Rodney said:

‘How’d he get out?’

He didn’t,’ said Limpy’s voice. ‘Not out. He got back.’

‘To where?’ jeered Rodney.

‘You shouldda asked when,’ said Limpy. He sounded discouraged. ‘I shouldn’t ha’ told you, guy, until you cracked an’ were ready to believe. But he went back to the time when he killed his wife. An’ then he didn’t kill her. He’d found out he was wrong, anyways. So he didn’t kill her - an’ so he wasn’t in the deathhouse for it.’

Rodney swallowed. His eyes fell on the note his lawyers had sent him. They’d done everything that the law or their ingenuity could suggest, and they couldn’t do any more. There wasn’t any more to do. The sight of that message sent gibbering panic to work at his temples again. But Limpy would hear him. He clenched his hands.

‘Why didn’t you pull the same trick?’ he asked sardonically.

‘I tried,’ said Limpy. His voice was flat.
^?
I tried hard. I’m still tryin’. Sometimes I think I’m gonna get it, an’ sometimes it seems just crazy. But Fellenden done it. If you could do it, maybe—’

Rodney stood by the bars of his cell. The patch of sunlight was almost near enough for him to reach out his hands and touch it. Presently he would put his hands in it, and feel the warmth of sunshine on his skin. But his hands were shaking.

‘It’s branching time tracks,’ said Rodney, scornfully. ‘That’s the idea! There can be more than one past, and more than one present, and more than one future. An old speculation. You do something and it sets you on one time track rather than another. If you could go back, you could do something else and get on another time track. That’s what Fellenden was talking about.’ ‘Yeah,’ said Limpy tiredly. His voice rolled like the voice of a preacher Rodney had heard once as a child. But his voice was weary. ‘Sure! He told me that. You get on a train, he says. It’s travelin’ through time. Past a town named Monday, an’ then past one named Tuesday, an’ Wednesday, an’ so on. Every so often you change trains. When you get on the wrong train it’s bad. He’d got on the wrong train, Fellenden says, when he killed his wife. He hadda go back an’ get on the right one. An’ he did. But I ain’t been able to. I was hopin’ maybe—’ Rodney said with a savage humor:

‘There’s no reason why not! The theory’s there. In a multidimensional universe, anything imaginable not only could happen, but necessarily must! So Fellenden could, in theory, do what you say he did. The trouble would be that he was on the wrong train. His problem was to get off. How’d he do it? I’m on a train I’d like to get off!’

Suddenly his throat was dry for a new reason. He listened with a desperate intentness for Limpy’s answer. The shaft of sunlight was close enough, now, for him to reach, but he did not put out his hands. He licked his lips.

‘I said the theory’s all right, Limpy! How’d Fellenden do it?’ Limpy said heavily:

‘That’s where I’m mixed up. You’ on a train, he says. It’s movin’ through time. Before you can go back you got to slow up. But the train won’t slow. You see a station slidin’ by -Wednesday maybe - an’ you wanna go back. You got on the wrong train Tuesday. Desperate, you start runnin’ for the back of the train. At first you don’t see no difference. But you keep runnin’. Presendy the station ain’t goin’ past you quite so fast. Then you run harder. You hold it even, runnin’ with all you got. An’ all of a sudden you get to the back of the train. The door’s open. You jump down to the tracks, an’ don’t get hurt because you’re runnin’ back as fast as the train runs ahead. An’ then you go high-tailin’ it back along the railroad track to where you got on the wrong train. An’ the right one’s there—’