ROBERT A. HEINLEIN
By His Bootstraps
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN
By His Bootstraps
Time travel is one of the most popular of science fiction’s basic themes because it allows the author the freedom to speculate on both the past and the future from the perspective of the present It can also provide the author and reader with the opportunity to have some intellectual fun playing with the many time-paradoxes involved—for example, if you went back in time and killed your mother before you were born, would you continue to exist?
No one in science fiction has ever engaged these issues with as much throughness as Robert A. Heinlein did in this (paradoxically) rarely reprinted story that is widely considered a classic in the field.
Bob Wilson did not see the circle grow.
Nor, for that matter, did he see the stranger who stepped out of the circle and stood staring at the back of Wilson’s neck—stared, and breathed heavily, as if laboring under strong and unusual emotion.
Wilson had no reason to suspect that anyone else was in his room; he had every reason to expect the contrary. He had locked himself in his room for the purpose of completing his thesis in one sustained drive. He had to—tomorrow was the last day for submission, yesterday the thesis had been no more than a title: “An Investigation Into Certain Mathematical Aspects of a Rigor of Metaphysics.”
Fifty-two cigarettes, four pots of coffee and thirteen hours of continuous work had added seven thousand words to the title. As to the validity of his thesis he was far too groggy to give a damn. Get it done, was his only thought, get it done, turn it in, take three stiff drinks and sleep for a week.
He glanced up and let his eyes rest on his wardrobe door, behind which he had cached a gin bottle, nearly full. No, he admonished himself, one more drink and you’ll never finish it, Bob, old son.
The stranger behind him said nothing.
Wilson resumed typing. “—nor is it valid to assume that a conceivable proposition is necessarily a possible proposition, even when it is possible to formulate mathematics which describes the proposition with exactness.
A case in point is the concept ‘time travel.’ Time travel may be imagined and its necessities may be formulated under any and all theories of time, formulae which resolve the paradoxes of each theory. Nevertheless, we know certain things about the empirical nature of time which preclude the possibility of the conceivable proposition. Duration is an attribute of consciousness and not of the plenum. It has no Ding an Sich. Therefore—”
A key of the typewriter stuck, three more jammed up on top of it. Wilson swore dully and reached forward to straighten out the cantankerous machinery. “Don’t bother with it,” he heard a voice say. “It’s a lot of utter hogwash anyhow.”
Wilson sat up with a jerk, then turned his head slowly around. He fervently hoped that there was someone behind him. Otherwise— He perceived the stranger with relief. “Thank God,” he said to himself.
“For a moment I thought I had come unstuck.” His relief turned to extreme annoyance. “\Vhat the devil are you doing in my room?” he demanded. He shoved back his chair, got up and strode over to the one door. It was still locked, and bolted on the inside.
The windows were no help; they were adjacent to his desk and three stories above a busy street. “How did you get in?” he added.
“Through that,” answered the stranger, hooking a thumb toward the circle. Wilson noticed it for the first time, blinked his eyes and looked again. There it hung between them and the wall, a great disk of nothing, of the color one sees when the eyes are shut tight.
Wilson shook his head vigorously. The circle remained. “Gosh,” he thought, “I was right the first time. I wonder when I slipped my trolley?” He advanced toward the disk, put out a hand to touch it.
“Don’t!” snapped the stranger.
“Why not?” said Wilson edgily. Nevertheless he paused.
“I’ll explain. But let’s have a drink first.” He walked directly to the wardrobe, opened it, reached in and took out the bottle of gin without looking.