Time Tunnel Read Free

now.”
    “But you don’t believe that!” protested Pepe.
    “Of course not. But it explains every fact but one.”
    “The one fact it does not explain,” said Pepe, “should be interesting.”
    “The fact is,” Harrison told him, “that there was a man named Bassompierre, and he was a friend of Talleyrand’s. He was born in 1767, he travelled in the Orient for several years, and he returned to France to discover that an imposter had assumed his identity and looted his estates. The imposter attacked him when he was unmasked, and was killed. So de Bassompierre resumed his station in society, corresponded with men of science—all this is in the official biographical material about him—and he was useful to Napoleon on one or two occasions but was highly regarded by the Bourbons when they returned. You see?”
    Pepe frowned.
    “There was a man named de Bassompierre!” said Harrison harassedly. “He was born two hundred-odd years ago! He died in 1858! He’s authentic! There’s no mystery about him. He couldn’t be a time-traveller!”
    “Ah, I am relieved!” said Pepe amiably. “You see, I under. stood that if one travelled into the past, he might by bad fortune happen to kill his grandfather as a youth. In such a case, he would not be born to go back in time to kill his grandfather. But if he were not born, he could not kill his grandfather, so he would be born to kill his grandfather. So he would not. So he would. And so on. I have considered that one could not travel into the past because of that little difficulty about one’s grandfather.”
    “But in an exceptional case,” said Harrison, “a case, for instance, in which a time-traveller did not happen to kill his grandfather, that argument doesn’t hold.”
    They went down the street together. Pepe made a grand gesture.
    “Again, if one could travel in time, then even without killing one’s grandfather one might change the past and therefore the present. Even the history books would have to change!”
    “Yes,” agreed Harrison wryly. “There might not be an Emperor Maximilian, for example. There might not be a you. Or a me. We might not ever have existed. I’d deplore that!”
    “But do you mean,” protested Pepe, “that because for a few seconds it seemed to us that an historical character did not exist—” He grimaced. “Because for a few moments we were confused, do you mean that during those few moments history was—was other than as it is? That something else was temporarily true?”
    “No-o-o-o,” admitted Harrison. “But if it had been, who’d have noticed it? I agree that we went through a freak occurrence, a shared delusion, you might say. But if it bad been real, how many people would have been talking about a thing when their memories changed and they could notice it?”
    “That is nonsense,” said Pepe with decision, “and it is not even amusing nonsense. You don’t believe it any more than I do.”
    “Of course not,” said Harrison. But he added unhappily, “At least I hope not. But this de Bassompierre business does stretch the long arm of coincidence completely out of joint. It’s all in the library. I wish it weren’t.”
    They strolled together. Pigeons flew overhead, careened and came back, and coasted down to where two or three energetic flappings would land them lightly. They began to inspect a place where a tiny wind-devil had heaped fallen leaves into a little pile. They moved suspiciously aside when Harrison and Pepe walked by.
    “No,” said Pepe firmly. “It is all quite ridiculous! I shall take you to the shop I mentioned, which reminded me of Professor Carroll. It is foolish that anyone should pretend to be in the business of importing and exporting commercial articles between now and the year eighteen hundred and four! Yet if time-travel were possible, there would certainly be somebody to make a business of it! And I have a grandmother who adores snuffboxes. We will go to the shop. If the