Murray Leinster Read Free Page A

had one of the four best brains—
    Time passed. Sweat came out on his forehead. Escape to a parallel time track would be escape of unparalleled completeness. One would have nothing to fear. The very cause of one’s fear would no longer be real. Not only the penalty, but the event which called for penalty could be wiped out. But there must be a starting point.
    He forgot to put his hands into the slender shaft of sunlight. The sunlight died, and he did not notice it. He paced his cell. Three paces this way. Three paces that. A starting point— A starting point—
    It grew dark. Rodney was tense and growing desperate. It was possible! The theory of parallel time tracks was almost orthodox! And Fellenden had proved its verity! But how? Given the beginning, Rodney knew he could go on. Given the principle by which experiment could be made, he could envision every detail that experiment should uncover. But he could not devise a beginning for experiment! He was like someone dying of cold with a fire ready laid but lacking a match, and not knowing how to make a fire drill to produce a spark. It grew maddening!
    Night had long fallen when he said sharply into the blackness: ‘Limpy!’
    He heard Limpy stir.
    Yeah?’
    ‘I’ve got it,’ said Rodney, harshly. ‘But I’m curious about Fellenden. Tell me how he started to work. I want to see if I’ve got a better way than he had?’
    Limpy’s voice rolled sonorously among the unseen walls. ‘You’ lyin’, guy. A fella who got that trick would want to tell everybody who’d listen.’
    Rodney could not imagine it. He snarled:
    ‘Altruism, eh? A part of it is to be kind and good?’
    ‘No!’ Limpy spat. Rodney heard him. ‘Just - you can’t take baggage. Fellenden said so. He said: We got all kinda anchors to this time track we’re in - we’re hitched tight to the train we’re on. We got to cut those bonds loose first. We can’t hang on to anything in this time track. It’s gonna be imaginary presently. We gotta not care about it any more’n something that’s imaginary now. Like’ - Limpy’s voice was unresentful -‘like you gotta get rid of feelin’ proud you got more brains than me. That ties you to me. I’m in this time track. You wanna leave it. You gotta let go of me. I ain’t on the train you wanna get!’ In the darkness, Rodney seethed even as this fitted into the pattern of logic. There was a patch of moonlight on the wall above the opposite cell tier. It was the only light anywhere. Limpy’s voice rolled on drearily:
    ‘I guess it’s no go, guy. I gave you just about all the stuff Fellenden told me. If you can’t make it work—’ Then Limpy said dubiously, ‘There’s just one other thing he kinda harped on. He says, how do we know we’re on this time track anyhow? How’d we know if we got on another one? What’s the difference between ’em, to us? How do we know time’s passin’? How do we know we’re travelin’ in time, anyhow? Does that make sense?’
    Rodney’s throat hurt when he swallowed.
    ‘B-bishop Berkeley!’ he said hoarsely. ‘I see and hear and feel the place I’m in. Therefore it is real to me. What I experience is real, to me. What I do not experience—’
    Then he cried out. He found himself clutching the bars of his cell. His voice babbled in triumph:
    ‘That’s it! That’s how you slow yourself in time! Listen! When you listen to a clock tick, seconds are long! When you notice things between the tickings, they’re longer! If you speed up your perceptions by noting ever more trivial things, you slow your rate of travel in time! That’s the first step!’
    His own voice echoed and re-echoed in the darkness. The little patch of moonlight was very sharp and very clear. It was inches from the top of the cell door opposite him. He said exultantly:
    ‘Then you break away from current time entirely. Reality is real because it matters. You’ve got to push away the mattering of everything in the present. A thing